Black Metal article
Black Metal for Newcomers: Where to Start
You don't need to know the lore to start. Here's exactly where to begin listening to black metal, in the order that actually works.
Right, let's cut through the intimidation factor first: you don't need to own a single black item of clothing, understand Norwegian occultism, or already know who Euronymous was to start listening to this genre. You just need a decent pair of headphones and a willingness to sit with something uncomfortable for a while. Here's exactly where to start with black metal, in the order that actually works.
Forget the Deep Lore. Start With Your Ears
Newcomers get tangled up in scene history, subgenre arguments and who-said-what-about-whom long before they've properly listened to the music itself. Skip all that for now. What you're actually listening for in black metal is tremolo picking — fast, continuous, alternating guitar strokes that create a buzzing, wall-like texture — blast-beat drumming, and vocals that shriek rather than growl. Everything else is decoration you can pick up later, once the core sound has actually clicked for you.
Step One: Hear Where the Name Came From
Start with Venom's 1982 album, literally titled Black Metal. It doesn't sound much like what came next — it's closer to speed metal — but it gave the whole thing its name and its confrontational attitude, and it's a useful reset before you hear how much the sound changed a decade later.
Step Two: Meet the Norwegian Second Wave
This is where the actual template gets built. Put on Darkthrone, Mayhem, Emperor and Immortal, one after another if you can. You'll hear the same basic ingredients — tremolo riffs, blast beats, shrieked vocals — used four completely different ways: raw and minimal, dramatically theatrical, orchestrally ambitious, and glacially fast, respectively.
Step Three: Sit With Repetition
Burzum's early records lean hard into hypnotic repetition rather than conventional songwriting, which trips a lot of newcomers up the first time round. Give it a proper, patient listen before deciding it's "just noise" — and know upfront that this is where you'll also run into the genre's darkest history, since Burzum is the work of Varg Vikernes, whose crimes and extremist views are separate, well-documented facts from the music itself. You're allowed to find the influence real and the history disturbing at the same time.
Step Four: Branch Out
Once the core sound clicks, go wide. Try something symphonic like Emperor's more orchestral work or Dimmu Borgir for a more polished take, or something atmospheric and patient like Wolves in the Throne Room. If even that feels like a lot, Deafheaven's Sunbather is the gentlest possible on-ramp — it wraps the same core techniques in shoegaze textures that most alternative-music fans will already find familiar. For the full map of where each of these fits, our subgenre guide lays out the whole family tree.
Raw Doesn't Mean Broken
The first time you hear a deliberately lo-fi record like Darkthrone's Transilvanian Hunger, your instinct might be that something's gone wrong with the recording. It hasn't. That harshness is a choice, not a limitation, and it's worth sitting with rather than dismissing on first listen. Once it clicks, plenty of newcomers find the raw stuff becomes their favourite corner of the whole genre.
A Practical Listening Order
- Venom, for where the name came from.
- Darkthrone, Mayhem, Emperor and Immortal, for the second-wave template.
- Burzum, for repetition and atmosphere, alongside the full context of who made it.
- Dimmu Borgir or Emperor's more symphonic side, for something more accessible.
- Deafheaven, if you want the gentlest possible landing point.
You're Allowed to Not Like All of It
Nobody, and I mean nobody, loves every corner of black metal equally. Some people can't stand the raw stuff; others think the symphonic side is too much. That's not a failure of taste on your part — it's a genuinely huge, contradictory genre, and picking a favourite lane is normal, not a sign you're doing it wrong. Give yourself permission to skip whole branches of it entirely if they're not landing, and come back to them later if curiosity ever gets the better of you. If you want the fuller picture of how it all fits together once you've got your bearings, our complete explainer covers the whole landscape properly.
The Bottom Line
Start with Venom, work through the Norwegian second wave, sit patiently with Burzum's context and repetition both, then branch out towards whichever black metal subgenre actually grabs you. There's no test at the end and no correct order beyond that — just a genre that rewards a bit of patience with something genuinely unlike anything else in metal.
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