Second Wave Of Black Metal

The second wave of black metal began in the early 1990s and was spearheaded by the Norwegian black metal scene. During 1990–1994 a number of Norwegian artists began performing and releasing a newkind of black metal music; this included Mayhem, Thorns, Burzum, Darkthrone, Immortal, Satyricon, Enslaved, Emperor, Dimmu Borgir, Gorgoroth, Ulver and Carpathian Forest. They developed the style oftheir 1980s forebears as a distinct genre that was separate from thrash metal. This was partly thanks to a new kind of guitar playing developed by Snorre "Blackthorn" Ruch of Stigma Diabolicum/Thorns andØystein "Euronymous" Aarseth of Mayhem.[4][7] Fenriz of Darkthrone has credited them with this innovation in a number of interviews. He described it as being "derived from Bathory"[18] and noted that"those kinds of riffs became the new order for a lot of bands in the '90s".[19] As seen below, some members of these Norwegian bands would be responsible for a spate of crimes and controversy,including church burnings and murder. Within this scene, an aggressive anti-Christian mindset became a must for any artists to be finalized as "black metal". Ihsahn of Emperor believes that this trend mayhave developed simply from "an opposition to society, a confrontation to all the normal stuff".[20] Visually, the dark themes of their music was complemented with corpsepaint, which became a way for manyblack metal artists to distinguish themselves from other metal bands of the era.[10]
Black metal scenes also emerged on the European mainland during the early 1990s, inspired by the Norwegian sceneor the older bands. In Poland, a scene was spearheaded by Graveland and Behemoth. In France, a close-knit group of musicians known as Les Légions Noires emerged; this included artists such asMütiilation, Vlad Tepes, Belketre and Torgeist. Bands such as Black Funeral, Grand Belial's Key and Judas Iscariot emerged during this time in the United States.
In the beginning of the second wave, the...