First Wave Black Metal

First wave black metal is the formative phase of black metal, running roughly from 1981 to the end of the 1980s, before the Norwegian second wave codified the genre. Its pioneers — *Venom*, *Bathory*, *Hellhammer*, *Celtic Frost*, *Mercyful Fate* and *Sarcófago* — were mostly thrash, speed and heavy metal bands pushing toward extremity: faster or rawer playing, rasped vocals and an explicit Satanic and occult image. The wave had no single sound; its unity is chronological and attitudinal, and nearly every device of later black metal, from shrieked vocals to deliberately poor production, appears within it in embryo.