Black metal
Black metal is a style of extreme metal music that originated in the 1980s from the work of thrash metal bands such as Venom (from Newcastle, England) — whose 1982 album "Black Metal" coined the term for the genre, Mercyful Fate (from Copenhagen, Denmark), Bathory (from Vällingby, Sweden), Slayer (from Huntington Park, California, United States), Hellhammer (from Nürensdorf, Switzerland), Celtic Frost (from Zürich, Switzerland), and Sodom (from Gelsenkirchen, Germany). A lyrical focus that is anti-Christian, Satanist, neopagan, or a combination thereof, is often considered a prerequisite for the genre, and originally the term "black metal" was synonymous with "Satanic metal". In the late-1980s and early-1990s, the early Norwegian black metal scene, developed by bands such as Mayhem, Thorns, Immortal, Darkthrone, Burzum, Emperor, Satyricon, and Ulver, established a more specific sonic template that came to define black metal. Common traits include a fast tempo, blast beats and double-bass drumming, a thin, shrieking vocal style heavily distorted guitars played with tremolo picking and power chords, either lo-fi or well-produced recordings, an emphasis on atmosphere, and an "unholy" aesthetic. Keyboards are frequent, as is usage of neoclassical, folk, and ambient music. Artists often appear in corpse paint and adopt pseudonyms. Many black metal artists prefer to be underground, inaccessible to the mainstream, and even intentionally push away audiences and demonstrate anti-social behavior.