The Canon, I: an Enumerative Review; or, Canonical Black Metal: 1981-1983

I often make the assumption that those of you who frequent this lightless cavern are "in the know", and indeed the content here is purposefully not directed toward anybody who has only a passing interest in the genre.  I intend to keep it that way: Blackened Relics exists for those of us who feel this shit in the pits of our seared, forsaken hearts.

Allow me to clarify, then, before I present the first installment of this index.  It is not intended as a primer for the uninitiated into The Canon, to which I frequently make reference, but is, instead, my lens focusing in a very personal way on the essential music of the golden age of black metal (and a bit of the eras preceding and succeeding), which is ultimately the focal point of this entire site, in chronology.  Note that I may periodically update these as I realise I've forgotten something.  Without further ado, then...

The Canon, I: 1981-1983

1981

       

Venom - Welcome to Hell

Welcome to Hell is right, this snarling little bastard being, arguably, the first shot in the future black metal genre's war on everything good and clean, not to mention the record that kickstarted the extreme metal movement.  Though heavily indebted to punk on this, their debut, Venom was still squarely a metal band, right down to the gauntlets and fuck-your-sister demeanor.  It was essentially just dark, minimalist, trussed up speed metal at the end of the day, but, doom metal aside, what isn't?

1982

Venom - Black Metal

And suddenly, somehow, before the notions of thrash, doom, or death metal - hell, before even speed metal had a name, let alone could be considered a full-fledged, standalone genre - black metal was born.  Of course, neither here nor on the debut did it sound on the surface similar to how it would come to be known, but nonetheless, Black Metal initiated a number of tropes that would come to be genre-definitive, whether intentional or not: hyperspeed, chainsaw riffing and skeletal drumming, scuzzy, wind-blower production, a preoccupation with the demonic, alter-egos complete with patented noms de guerre, even monochromatic album art are all present and accounted for, and still to this day, approaching forty years later, are staples of the artform and accompanying aesthetic.

1983

  

Hellhammer - Death Fiend/Triumph of Death

While Hellhammer can lay claim to being responsible for the first genuinely "black" musical elements to appear on record anywhere, at the Death Fiend/Triumph of Death (two demos, one session) juncture, recording live in a toilet, no doubt, they had yet to figure out how to constructively communicate any kind of coherent weltanschauung.  The components here are effectively the same as those found on the subsequent two releases - a seething melange of Venom, UK crusties Discharge and everything-godfathers Motörhead - yet their utilisation and integration is forced and illogical and, ultimately, unsuccessful.  Translated: the songwriting's clumsy and inept, and not in a way that you're gonna like.  Still, the (untapped) spirit of productive nihilism swirling herein is the same foundational one that the group would go on, as early as a mere six months later, to fashion into the brutal, single-minded bludgeoning and earth scorching of the next two Hellhammer releases and, from there, refine as the stately, introverted, violent existentialism of Celtic Frost.

Hellhammer - Satanic Rites

A mere six months following the recording of the Death Fiend/Triumph of Death dual demo, a clunky, amateur affair, and here Hellhammer is already roaring back to life with what is without doubt one of the single most influential slabs of primitive, primordial (proto-?)black metal.  Satanic Rites is a much leaner, focused release than the preceding cacophonies, and the residue of it's brutal, minimalist Venom-cum-Discharge spiked with Motorhead miasma can still be seen clinging stubbornly to the hulls of everybody from '90s stalwarts Burzum and Ildjarn and into the 2000s via acts like 1349 and the entire raw black metal set.  It's rollicking, thudding two-evil-chords-and-two-only importance simply cannot be overstated.

Slayer - Show No Mercy

This album, or indeed anything by Slayer, may not, at first blush, seem as if it belongs here, but here me out: the first couple of Slayer's recorded output are and will always be, to my ears, seminal first wave black metal.  While Hellhammer was knocking around during the same year and ocean away with their first recorded output that stripped Venom's over-the-top Satanic, punk-infused metallic extremity down to its most basic components parts and marrying it back to the bleakly minimalist, bulldozing hardcore/crust of Discharge, Slayer were busy Stateside taking that same Venom template, spiking it with Judas Priestisms, and turning the whole seething melange up to evleven...hundred.  It's practically Bathory.

Genuflect you motherfuckers.


Note: You'll notice that Mercyful Fate is not listed here.  I'm actually a huge fan, and perhaps in the future I'll have a change of heart on this, but as of today, I'm convinced that from a musical standpoint, they don't belong here.  Aesthetic, sure, but the primacy of aesthetics is not one that I champion in this respect.