Top 10 Bands That Influenced Black Metal

The Top Ten
1 Venom Venom are an English extreme metal band formed in 1979 in Newcastle upon Tyne. Coming to prominence towards the end of the new wave of British heavy metal, Venom's first two albums—Welcome to Hell and Black Metal—are considered a major influence on thrash metal and extreme metal in general.

Mostly a thrash metal band, but with the brutal satanic-themed lyrics that would later influence the Norwegian scene. They coined the term "Black Metal" with their 1982 album.

2 Bathory Bathory was a Swedish Black/Viking Metal band formed in 1983 by Quorthon and Jonas Åkerlund. Bathory's first 4 albums layed the blueprint for Scandinavian Black Metal. Quorthon is often credited with creating the "shrieking" vocal style of Black Metal. Their 5th album, Hammerheart (1990) displayed old school Heavy Metal with a Nordic folk twist, creating Viking Metal. Majority of their work was Viking Metal , but Bathory is most well known for their first 4 , which proved influential to many future Black Metal bands. Bathory ended in 2004 when Quorthon died of heart failure.

Bathory's first few albums was the blueprint for black metal. The shrieking vocals were created with dark lyrics.

3 Mercyful Fate Mercyful Fate was a Danish heavy metal band from Copenhagen, formed in 1981 by vocalist King Diamond and guitarist Hank Shermann.

King Diamond is an amazing singer. He had dark, satanic themed vocals that would later have a huge impact on black metal.

Mercyful Fate is way better than Venom in my opinion

4 Celtic Frost Celtic Frost was a Swiss extreme metal band from Zürich. They are known for their strong influence on the development of extreme metal. Formed in 1981 as Hellhammer, the band became Celtic Frost in 1984 and was active until 1993.

Formerly Hellhamer, this band had an extreme impact on Black Metal and Death Metal, the shrieks and growls are crazy

5 Sodom Sodom is a German thrash metal band from Gelsenkirchen, formed in 1981. They have gone through many line-up changes, leaving bassist vocalist Tom Angelripper as the only constant member.

Known to most as a thrash metal band, but the early work had black metal style vocals with dark lyrics.

6 Hellhammer Hellhammer was a Swiss extreme metal band from Nurensdorf, active during 1981–1984. They are regarded as a key influence on black metal, and one of the founders of death metal.

Hellhammer was only active for a couple years, but had a huge impact down the road. Later became Celtic Frost

7 Bulldozer

Not very well known, but an Italian band. But influenced the Scandinavian scene a lot

8 Mayhem Mayhem is a Norwegian black metal band formed in 1984 in Oslo, regarded as one of the pioneers of the Norwegian black metal scene. The band is also known for the infamous events surrounding them including the 1991 suicide of vocalist Dead (in which former guitarist Euronymous took pictures of Dead's corpse and used one of them as the front cover for one of their live albums) and the 1993 murder of Euronymous by former member Varg Vikernes, of Burzum.

Probably the first Norwegian Black Metal band. Some crazy stories too. Dead (lead singer) is believed to be the first to wear corpse pain.

9 Immortal Immortal is a black metal band from Bergen, Norway, founded in 1990 by frontman and guitarist Abbath Doom Occulta and former guitarist Demonaz Doom Occulta.

Debated to be one of the first as well, formed from 1988-1990.

10 Burzum Burzum is an influential black metal solo project of Norwegian musician and writer Varg Vikernes. Burzum came to prominence at the beginning of the Norwegian Black Metal scene in the early 1990s. Vikernes was imprisoned for 21 years for the murder of Mayhem guitarist Euronymous, and charges of church arson. In prison, Burzum released 2 dark ambient albums recorded entirely on synthesizers. Burzum is still active to this day, but has never performed live.

A one man black metal project by Varg Vikernes. He later became the bass player of Mayhem and ended up murdering their guitar player.

BAdd New Item