Stop Calling it “First Wave Black Metal”

If you're well-versed in the history of extreme metal, you've likely come across the term “first wave black metal” enough times, whether it's from Sam Dunn in Metal Evolution or fat neckbeards on Reddit trying to convince you that Bathory weren't “real black metal”. The term is very common place in scene, but does it really make any sense?

The reason I say this is that the use of the word “wave” in the name specifies that it is a movement that happened during a certain time period, however there is a very distinct musical style associated with it that stretches far out of the period between Venom releasing “Black Metal” in 1982 and the Norwegian black metal scene beginning in the early-1990s. Most notably, Apokalyptic Raids from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, who sound exactly like Hellhammer, one of first wave black metal's most influential acts (and even took their name from their 1984 EP “Apocalyptic Raids”), formed in 1998, well out of the time period specified, so what genre would they be?

Metal Archives claims Apokalyptic Raids to be “black/death/thrash metal”, which doesn't get any closer to a label, with Hellhammer being categorised under “speed/thrash/black metal”. If you've noticed, of the four genres cited between those two acts, three of them are generally considered to be styles of “extreme metal”; thrash, black and death metal, which make up the most well known styles in the genre, only excluding a mention of war metal. This is why I've often taken to simply using the term “extreme metal” in place of “first wave black metal”, because all styles of extreme metal spun off of it.

Extreme metal itself came from the merger of influences from early speed metal practitioners like Blitzkreig and Accept, as well as the primitive crust punk sound of early Amebix. Some try to claim that it was in fact Venom that influenced Amebix, but Amebix vocalist Rob “the Baron” Miller has cited that when he heard Venom's début “Welcome to Hell” he mailed an Amebix demo to the band, with Mantas replying to by saying that they would “be sure to rip [Amebix] off”, which would soon be followed by the release of Venom's “Black Metal”, which is most often cited as the beginning of extreme metal (this isn't just a bluff in an attempt to seem more influential too, Amebix would still be one of the most influential groups in the underground without this claim by Miller, and Black Metal does sound a lot like Amebix. And I mean a lot).

After Black Metal, extreme metal would go on to be refined into four different primary styles, with each one having its own derivatives and sub-genres, the first of which was thrash metal, which originated over in the United States not long after the record's released. Metallica pioneered this style and its one that needs the least explanation as you've probably already heard a lot about it. But to summarise, it also took influence from British hardcore punk (sometimes called “street punk”) groups like GBH, Chaos UK, the Exploited and early-Discharge and incorporated some elements of straight heavy metal groups, most notably Diamond Head. Some groups occupy the middle-ground between straight extreme metal and thrash, for example: Sodom's pre-“Agent Orange” output is thrash-leaning extreme metal (with much of post-AO being straight thrash), whereas Slayer's sound is extreme metal-leaning thrash.

For the next extreme metal strand, we remain in the US, with San Francisco's Possesed, who cited Venom and thrash metal legends Exodus as their biggest influences. Some claim that their début full-length is the first death metal album, but at least to me, it's always seemed far more along the lines of Canada extreme metal band Slaughter but I won't deny it was well on it's way. To me, what makes the extra push into death metal would the influence from Hellhammer and the first band to do this was Ohio's Necrophagia shortly followed by Death (previously called Mantas after the guitarist of Venom), who released “Season of the Dead” and “Scream Bloody Gore” respectively in 1987.

Next, black metal grew gradually over time. Bathory were definitely a huge step over from the sound of Venom or Celtic Frost but they still didn't sound like what we think of black metal as being today. Following on from Bathory, Parabellum from Colombia got extremely close to the black metal, but still didn't manage to just reach it, despite being cited as a major influence by Euronoymous from Mayhem. Instead, the first black metal record was released by Tormentor from Hungary, that being their début album “Anno Domini”, which notably featured Attila Csihar, who would become the longest running vocalist for Mayhem, laying the foundation for the style that would become popularised by the controversial Norwegian black metal scene.

Finally, the biggest influence on war metal was Brazilian extreme metal group Sarcofago's (formed when founding Sepultura vocalist Wagner Lamounier left the band because he thought they were “too commercial”) début album “I.N.R.I.”. Not only did the look of the band members on the album sleeve heavily influence the look of both war metal and black metal, but the sound was a distinct merger of extreme metal, death metal and black metal, making for an extremely dense and heavy listening experience, which Canada's Blasphemy would build upon with elements of grindcore on their début full-length “Fallen Angel of Doom...”, thus pioneering war metal.