– 1987 –
Let's just go ahead and get the elephant in the room out of the way. Yes, 1986 turned out to be the calm before the storm, with the following year seeing the release of what many consider the most seminal "true" black metal album of all time, Mayhem's Deathcrush. I covered this album in depth for last year's Black Metal History Month, so I won't dwell too much on it here. Be warned: everything you've heard prior to this throughout the primer is child's play in comparison.
After Deathcrush everything for the rest of the 80's is likely to sound a bit regressive when stacked next to it, but it takes a bit of time for these things to disseminate. In fact, outside the so-called "Black Circle" in Oslo most bands would not be exposed to Mayhem for years to come. In the meantime the global metal scene continued to evolve as usual, with no way of knowing their ostensibly "pioneering" efforts had already been lapped several times over.
One interesting exception was the 1987 release of the British band Sabbat's first single "Blood for the Blood God". While not the heaviest item in this report, the band's occult lyrics were far more sophisticated – even esoteric – than anything that had come before, and their epic keyboard fanfare would inspire countless symphonic black metal bands throughout the 90's.
Halfway across the globe, there was another, more longstanding Sabbat from Japan that was kicking off a long string of prolific singles, EP's and – eventually – full length albums. This Sabbat had formed in 1983 but would languish in obscurity outside Japan until being name checked by a plethora of second wave black metal bands later on in the 90's.
Back in Brazil, Sarcófago were getting their act off the ground fairly quickly, already following up on the previous year's Satanic Lust demo with a fairly well-produced full length album, the cult classic I.N.R.I. In addition to a cleaner yet no less brutal re-recording of "Satanic Lust", astute listeners were also treated to such aural brutalities as "Christ's Death", a track that closes out on a chorus of tortured howls that would sound right at home on one of the later Norwegian recordings.
1987 also marked the year that perennial Czech underdogs Master's Hammer began churning out a slew of demos (they wouldn't release their first studio album until 1991's Ritual. Sloppy as it is, the fact that something as advanced as this came out the same year as Deathcrush is pretty fucking impressive.
Finally, Bathory released the beyond classic Under the Sign of the Black Mark in 1987, thus unofficially wrapping up their nascent black metal phase before going on to invent viking metal the following year with Blood Fire Death. This right here is my nomination for the single greatest black metal song of all time.
