“Explicitly Satanic and utterly primal, their ritualistic assault influenced many later groups”: These 4 obscure black metal bands deserve to be as big as Emperor and Dimmu Borgir

Beherit posing for a photograph in 1991.

It’s easy to forget just how much of a shock to the system black metal was when it exploded in the early 1990s. Even beyond the controversy – namely murder and church burning – it pushed metal to abrasive new extremes.

Today, black metal has become respected, if not respectable. Bands such as Emperor, Mayhem, Satyricon and Dimmu Borgir or no longer feared, hated or ridiculed, but held up as the pioneers they truly are.