Evil Codex

The first 2nd wave black metal album

Most of the time, I see people mentioning Darkthrone’s A Blaze in the Northern Sky as the first album of the Second Wave of Black Metal. But is it, really? There are a few facts that make this claim a bit shaky. Why is it, then, that every serious historical account — and popular consensus — instead points to Mayhem as the true pioneers of the Second Wave?

And what about those who cite Samael’s Worship Him, Master’s Hammer’s Ritual, Bathory’s Under the Sign of the Black Mark, Blasphemy’s Fallen Angel of Doom, or even Mayhem’s Deathcrush? Why, in turn, is De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas so often regarded as the definitive standard of the second wave sound?

This topic is trickier than it seems on the surface. I don’t want to take the easy route of saying it was simply a “collective evolution”. Instead, I want to start from another proposition: that there are different meanings behind what it means to call an album “the first Second Wave black metal record.” Depending on which meaning we adopt, a different album might fit that role.

Recognizing those distinctions helps reveal which definitions are substantial — rooted in history, influence, aesthetics, sound, and ideology — and which are merely formal.

The first Norwegian black metal record

If we start from this definition, we inevitably arrive at Mayhem’s 1987 EP Deathcrush. However, this release is usually considered part of the First Wave of Black Metal rather than the Second. That doesn’t make it any less significant — as even Fenriz himself has pointed out, Deathcrush was arguably the first Norwegian extreme metal record, period.

Still, its sound doesn’t yet embody the traits of the later Norwegian scene — the cold, tremolo-driven riffs and the distinctive “norse” atmosphere that would define the Second Wave. Instead, what we have is a raw, uncompromising black metal record — and a historical leap that’s often overlooked — one that fuses the aggression of Hellhammer, Sodom, Venom, Bathory, and early Sepultura into a single ugly slab of pure black metal.

The first SECOND WAVE black metal album that was published

Under this definition, there’s little debate that Darkthrone’s A Blaze in the Northern Sky, released by Peaceville Records in March 1992, fits that role. This sophomore album marked a dramatic shift — not only for Darkthrone themselves, who had been playing death-thrash metal just weeks before entering the studio, but also for a wider movement of bands in early ’90s Norway that were transitioning from death to black metal.

A Blaze in the Northern Sky had an immediate impact, resonating throughout Scandinavia and quickly being recognized in the global underground as the defining face of the new Norwegian black metal sound.

Yet, as most fans know, the album expanded upon a style that was already taking shape within Norway’s extreme metal underground. Darkthrone injected heavy doses of Celtic Frost-inspired riffing and cloaked it all in their own “necro” aesthetic. But the sound — and the ideology behind it — did not originate with them. It was something they consciously adopted. That acknowledgment is quietly embedded in the record itself: every release of A Blaze in the Northern Sky carries the note, “This album is eternally dedicated to the king of death/black metal Euronymous”'. More on this later....

The first album that sounded like second wave black metal

For this category, we have at least three main contenders — or at least the ones most frequently mentioned in this context:

In Bathory’s case, the impact and legacy of this release are monumental. It might very well be the first record that truly sounds like Nordic black metal. As Fenriz once pointed out, it introduced the diatonic dyads technique — when the fifth within a power chord moves up or down — creating that eerie and tonally committed riffing style that would later define the genre. However, Under the Sign of the Black Mark still carries strong traces of thrash and speed metal in its guitar work, without yet having developed a distinctive playing approach that clearly separated it from other metal subgenres.

When it comes to Master’s Hammer and Samael, both records capture much of the atmosphere of Second Wave black metal, but they occupy a similar position to Bathory’s in terms of riffing and picking technique. In these albums, you don’t yet hear the specific guitar style that would ultimately detach the Second Wave from both the First Wave and from the broader extreme metal spectrum — the element that made it a genre of its own rather than just another stylistic branch within extreme metal.

Moreover, while Ritual and Worship Him were influential within the underground, they didn’t trigger the same seismic shift in other bands’ sounds as the records discussed earlier. I see all three releases as valid contenders — or counterexamples, depending on the angle — when debating the origins of the Second Wave. They were crucial stepping stones in its buildup — with Bathory’s 1987 release being by far the most important — but still not quite there yet.

The album that contains the earliest second wave black metal material

A spectre is haunting the darkest corners of extreme metal — the spectre of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. Even when this album was finally released during 1994, after all the chaos and death that surrounded Mayhem precipitated in the band's demise, it's impact and legacy started several years earlier.

The album's name was coined by Pelle "Dead" Ohlin during 1989, probably inspired by the fictional cursed grimoire of "The Vermiis Mysteriis" by Robert Bloch. The songs themselves were crafted since 1988, being Freezing Moon the first to be completed, followed by Funeral Fog, Buried by Time and Dust, and Pagan Fears, during 88-89. The songs were recorded in the Out from the Dark rehearsal in 1989, played live in several shows during 1990, being the most notorious the ones in Zeits, Sarpsborg and Liepzig (of course). Also, the tracks Carnage and most importantly Freezing Moon where published as studio tracks in the Swedish extreme metal compilation from 1991 Projections of a Stained Mind.

As a bonus, a rough mix of DMDS started circulating in closed circles during 1992, which is also proof that the later four song of DMDS were created during 90-91 (at a point in which Snorre also contributed some riffs). Something you should check ASAP in case you havent heard it before:

I think with all this is pretty clear that the four earlier DMDS songs were composed, recorded, played live and distributed before Darkthrone's 1992 album. But also before Thorns Grymyrk demo tape (1991) which is often credited as the first recording with the "norse riff", something is quite inaccurate. The Thorns demo codifies in a crystal clear way the norwegian black metal riff invented by Snorre and Euronymous circa 1988, with the tremolos going up and down an arpeggio, but this technique is also displayed in all the four tracks of DMDS. The main difference is that Euronymous used minor triads and did more melodic guitar work, while Snorre used mainly minor barre chords with the added sliding dissonance, but you get the groundbreaking technique that infected the whole scene in both, making the DMDS early tracks the first ones of their kind.

So...

Considering all this, I think De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas is the album that truly marks the origin of second-wave Norwegian black metal. Specifically, the first half of DMDS — “Freezing Moon,” “Funeral Fog,” “Pagan Fears,” and “Buried by Time and Dust”. It stands as a haunted, mutilated entity — a work that could never fully attain its ideal, complete form with the original Mayhem lineup, yet one that cursed everything that followed. Through its very incompleteness, it ignited an entire movement in pursuit of that same dark, unfulfilled quest.

That’s what really matters to me, and that’s what makes it more seminal — not who happened to sign a contract and release an LP first. This is also why the DMDS album is regarded as the absolute standard of the genre (even if its musical quality and authenticity alone would already justify that status) and not the other Norwegian contenders.

It may have been released in 1994 because of all the difficulties the band faced in completing it, but half of its material predates everything else and was already circulating within the Norwegian scene before 1992. You can prefer Darkthrone, Thorns, Master's Hammer, or Blasphemy, but those facts remain undeniable. That’s why Mayhem will always be seen as the ultimate pioneers of the genre as we understand it today — and De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas will forever stand as the dark cornerstone supporting the entire deranged universe that is black metal.

Of course, this doesn’t make the works that followed any less relevant. One can find those later efforts superior, more refined, or more extreme — but that’s no reason to rewrite history, let alone twist it to defend mere opinion. And perhaps, I can still doubt all of this while listening to Bathory’s 1987 album — with only the absence of those signature Norse riffs making me side with Mayhem in this case.