Nightmare Fuel / Black Metal

Unlike Death Metal, black metal isn't just messed up musically... it's also messed up ideologically and personally.

Black metal is known to be a terrifying genre for very good reasons. Some aspects can even make Death Metal, its sister genre, look like children's songs. It's that one genre that can easily give you a healthy dose of Sanity Slippage and Paranoia Fuel. Long story short, there's one word that perfectly describes the genre: hatred. And in an incredibly harsh way.

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• The corpse paints look quite not-so-human, easily putting them in Uncanny Valley with absolutely no room for Fanservice. Some bands even went as far as painting themselves to resemble demons, making them look like Humanoid Abominations. And if that wasn't enough, a few of them would even mix the paint with fake, or worse, real blood, adding an extra Squick factor to the whole deal.
• The riffs themselves have a very haunted, creepy feel, building a chaotic and tense atmosphere that only gets worse when bass and keyboard (if used) are thrown into the mix. Guitar solos are usually absent, but when they appear, they only contribute to the already tense character of the music. The Loudness War only adds an extra layer of dread to the sound since the distinctive "lo-fi" quality derived from such a phenomenon makes the music sound like it came straight out of a horror movie.
• Shrieking vocals, commonly used in the genre, will send chills down your spine, especially if you are not accustomed to the genre, with their ghostly, pain-sunken, dark feel. Black Speech, if used, only makes it sound even more menacing.
  • Death growls taken from Death Metal aren't common, but that doesn't mean it's any better. In fact, listening to a black metal song with death growls instead of shrieking vocals can freeze your blood, as they are very good at scaring people with their demonic tone, especially for those more used to the raspy shrieks common within the genre. Using both styles makes things even worse.
• Lyrics, while usually not as gory as death metal, are still more than enough to evoke nightmares. Loads and loads of lyrics are misanthropic, all of which create scenes filled with hatred and madness. The sheer abundance of Satanic imagery and a lot darker depictions of mythology don't help either.
  • What separates them from the usual Satanic imagery found in thrash, death, grind, and others is there are bands who legitimately are Satanists and condone violent, vile, and twisted acts. Several bands also have very intimidating names, logos that look like actual monsters, as well as nightmare-inducing pseudonyms for the band members. All those would've been Narm or Narm Charm, if it wasn't for the fact Serious Business ruined all the narmy parts of the genre.
    • In fact, Gorgoroth, Watain, and Deathspell Omega are so notorious that they warrant their own pages.
• The situation isn't even any better if the bands are on live concerts. A few vocalists, such as Dead, Maniac, and Kvarforth, are known for cutting themselves while singing onstage. Other black metal bands also used actual animal corpses as stage props. once Gorgoroth played live on Polish TV on a stage surrounded by barbed wire with severed pigs' heads impaled on stakes and surrounded by life-size wooden crosses with naked female models (hooded) tied on Christian crosses, something you definitely won't see on U.S. prime time television. Watain probably outdoes other bands on this: their shows are famous for pigs' blood being sprayed all over the place.
• Whenever Satan does get illustrated, he is portrayed in the most disturbing, monstrous, evil, demonic way possible, like a combination of Animalistic Abomination, Eldritch Abomination, and Cthulhumanoid, but even worse.
  • It doesn't help most album covers are monochrome, with a few shades of red added, making them that much scarier than most other album covers.
• At the genre's peak, the only way to get taken seriously as a black metal band was to burn down a church or two, as well as to torture and brutally murder a person or two. In other words, you have to be mercilessly cruel and cause terror in order to get accepted in the black metal scene.
  • TheTopTens has a list full of disturbing actions done by black metal musicians. It's NSFL for a reason.
  • The Fandom Rivalry between the Norwegian black metal and Swedish death metal scenes was so fierce that there were reported incidents of Swedish death metal fans plotting to bomb and assassinate Norwegian black metal bands and fans, and vice-versa. And thou thought the "West Coast/East Coast" rivalry of Hip-Hop was the most violent rivalry in musical history.
    • Greek and Norwegian black metalheads also hate each other to the point of attempting to murder each other's bands.
    • A lot of black metallers who are theistically Satanic wanted to outright torture and kill unblack metal bands. Talk about a Broken Base!
• Subgenres aren't any tamer. DSBM, as the name suggests, is all about depression and suicide. DSBM is filled with harrowing screams and lyrics mentioning self-harm, depression, isolation, pain, and mental illness in general, and the widespread black/doom and dark ambient influences only accentuate the grim atmosphere within the music. In addition, DSBM as a whole functions as a form of art therapy both for the artist and the listener, and the music wouldn't be created if it wasn't needed.
  • You might think unblack metal/Christian black metal would be Nightmare Retardant, Narm or Lighter and Softer, since Christianity is perhaps a positive and peaceful religion (and the sheer fact that many within the black metal scene despise the genre and the associated religion)? Well, think again! One thing that reverses this? The Bible also has its own very dark and unsettling moments and the lyrics of most unblack/Christian black metal songs are just as nightmarish as their Satanic counterparts, or perhaps even more so, so don't be fooled by its pro-Christianity imagery. ^note You can say unblack metal is pretty much a Darker and Edgier offshoot of the regular Christian metal, and perhaps, the latter's Darkest Hour.
  • There's also blackened death metal, which goes for death metal's pure, unadulterated aggression with chugging guitars, pummeling blast beats, demonic death growls, and gruesome depictions of gore, rape, mutilation, and murder mixed with Satanism, occultism, and dark portrayals of mythology within the lyrics.
    • The same goes for blackened grindcore in that it takes black metal and kitbashes it with grindcore in a crazed orgy of madness, creating an unholy hybrid between two genres that are already known for their dissonant, chaotic sound.
  • There's blackened doom metal that combines doom metal's heaviness, sense of dread, and crushing atmosphere with black metal's shrieking vocals, tremolo picking, Satanism, and rawness. Even worse, stuff like blackened funeral doom and blackened death-doom also exist, and they manage to make the aforementioned genres even creepier than they already were.
    • For those who think blackened death metal isn't "kvlt" enough, we also have war/bestial black metal, which can be best described as blackened death metal taken up to eleven with hefty doses of grindcore, Harsh Noise, and power violence, making it extremely cacophonous and chaotic. With lyrics depicting wholesome and uplifting topics such as visions of apocalypse and conflict, total war, nuclear holocaust, and extreme Satanism along with the liberal use of gas masks, bullet belts, nuclear Baphomets, and goat demons laden with bandoliers on album covers, this genre is practically Hate Plague in musical form, indeed, pure fucking hatred and malice incarnate. The main page describes this subgenre as black metal's equivalent to brutal death metal for a very good reason.
  • Despite often being considered a Lighter and Softer, Dark Is Not Evil, or at the very least A Lighter Shade of Black variant of black metal, even atmospheric black metal has its fair share of nightmare fuel. Many bands of this subgenre are heavily influenced by the already dark sounding Burzum and turn it up to eleven (at least musically), creating long and atmospherically dense songs that, despite being epic, are not any less aggressive. This is especially evident in space/cosmos-themed black metal, which is heavily influenced by dark ambient to create soundscapes reminding one of the vast, cold voids between the stars or even galaxies, accompanied by heavily distorted riffs, very fast blast beats, and utterly inhuman shrieks and roars. Just listen to this.
  • Then we have National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM), and the name alone should already be a good indicator for what it talks about. This subgenre glorifies Nazi Germany's devastating and horrific war crimes (The Holocaust, for example), and its fandom is extremely antisemitic, so if you really value your sanity, steep clear of this genre!
    • In the darkest and saddest form of irony possible, NSBM arose fast and far within the Slavic countries, the very people actual Nazis wanted and attempted to exterminate. Harsher in Hindsight, much?
• The Helvete ^note Norwegian for 'hell', comes from the Norse hels víti, translating to “hell’s punishment.” basement in Oslo, located under Neseblod Records shop, is undeniably creepy, as it feels like you're walking through a dungeon, or an abandoned mad scientist's chamber. With low lighting, posters with dark imagery, general unkempt appearance, and the simple fact of its association with the genre's more extreme aspects add a layer of menace.
• The album cover of The Dawn of the Black Hearts, a bootleg live album by the Norwegian black metal band Mayhem, bears a photograph of vocalist Dead (Per Yngve Ohlin), shortly after his suicide on 8 April 1991. The photograph was taken by guitarist Euronymous (Oystein Aarseth), shortly after he entered the house the band shared and discovered the body. There are still people out there who are deeply traumatized by Dead's suicide picture to this day (mainly his family members and childhood friends)—and with good reason. The cover in question is downright disturbing, unsettling, and definitely Nightmare Fuel. For those who have seen the cover, sweet dreams, and for those who haven't, view it at your own risk.
• The lyrics of Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas are written by Dead, who committed suicide.
  • While any song that Dead wrote counts as this, a special mention goes to "Life Eternal" a song about finding immortality and fulfillment in death. What separates this from the usual Transylvanian horror fare is that the song was most likely autobiographical; Dead was speculated to have Cotard's Delusion, meaning that he felt that he was already dead and trapped in a false life. sliced open his wrists and blew his brains out with a 12-gauge, leading to above. Knowing that makes the song itself sound like Dead's suicide note.
  • Speaking of Dead, Mayhem fans recorded their own Dead impersonation on De Mysteriis dom Satanas and Life Eternal. Not only do the vocals bear creepily close resemblance to Dead's, but with Attila's vocals still in the background, it created an atmosphere that can only be described as grim in all senses of the word.
  • Dead is viewed as an unstable, deranged, and terrifying performer live when it came to the self-harming and the sheer passion he invoked in his performances. His suicide and learning about how much of a Broken Bird he was just makes it terrifying. All this is the reason why he is pictured above. That's not even getting to his performance on Live at Leipzig, where he screams at the beginning before "Pure Fucking Armageddon".
    "COME ON! LEIPZIG! COME ON! JOIN US!!!!"
  • The overall atmosphere of De mysteriis dom santhas, with Attila's demonic vocals, the eerie foreshadowing of Dead's lyrics, and the fact this album features Euronymous and Varg despite the fact Varg murdered Euronymous and it technically being the last album the band made before it's resurrection by Hellhammer afterward is...unnerving to say the least.
  • Euronymous: The fact that his reaction to finding Pelle dead is to snap a picture and use it as cover art, clearly speaks volumes about the dude's mental state.
    • Although Mayhem isn't a RABM band, Euronymous favoured the repressive regimes such as Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and his reasoning was how cold and brutal they were, as he once said he'd love to see people he hated suffer in concentration camps, which speaks of his mental state even more. He was also an ardent proponent of sodomy, rape, and murder simply because they were evil acts.
  • The dramatic reenactment of the band's most fucked-up side by the film Lords of Chaos truly drives home the point that black metal is not a joke when it comes to messed-up aspects.
• Those photos of Euronymous gave us a really creepy feel, with him mastering his twist on Nothing Is Scarier.
• Dimmu Borgir's "Puritania". A song that starts "we'll do away with your kind" and then a robotic voice saying "exterminate the human race." and finishes with "Earth successfully erased". Most of the song is sung by someone impersonating a demonic robot.
  • Their song, Tormentor of Christian Souls. The lyrics are not overly graphic, but still extremely disturbing. The narrator gloats about how he could torture and rape someone but won't because instead he wants to break them mentally by destroying everything they love.
• Cradle of Filth:
  • Try having a good night's sleep after listening to "Dinner at Deviant's Palace" or "Venus in Fear". We dare you.
  • Dani Filth's unnaturally shrill screams are just terrifying. He sounds like a female murder victim from a horror movie at times. Other vocal techniques he uses always sounds eerie, too; his deep voice sounds like Satan himself.
  • As a bonus for curious tropers, here's Dinner at Deviant's Palace in reverse. Sweet dreams!
• Blut aus Nord's infamous album The Work Which Transforms God. It is just so full of dread-inducing, disturbing riffs and ambient sounds. It almost feels like it was not a human who created it, but instead a extraterrestrial lifeform or just a person who were inspired by a musical culture that doesn't exist on Earth and, by God, is it terrifying.
  • In addition, their later releases, with their extremely harsh and noisy textures and copious use of Drone of Dread, are quite unnerving, even by Black Metal standards.
  • The Work Which Transforms God as a whole is split between eerie Drone of Dread and incredibly heavy, dissonant, and inhuman industrial metal. Special mention goes to the song "Inner Metal Cage", which has a part where the guitars and drums drop away leaving only a quiet humming sound, which is then interrupted suddenly by a bizarre, croaking shriek, after which the music resumes with a strange, robotic voice chanting over the riff.
  • MoRT as a whole probably counts. The album is even more dissonant and inhuman than anything else the band has done, to the point of abandoning song structures altogether. And then there's the cover art, which looks like something from Silent Hill.
  • Disharmonium - Undreamable Abysses can be seen as the musical incarnation of Cosmic Horror within the genre thanks to its haunting, ethereal sound. Not helping is the fact that it draws a much of inspiration from the Cthulhu Mythos, another work that is already quite disturbing in its own right.
  • "Disharmonium - Nahab", the follow up to Undreamable Abysses, takes it's dark Cosmic Horror atmosphere and ramps it up to 11 while retaining its strong guitar driven core, creating something that can be best described as the soundtrack of the Outer Gods themselves.
• Behemoth: Almost all of their musical output and music videos qualify, with lyrics referencing extreme Satanism and occultism by the boatloads. The worst contenders for videos include “Lucifer” and “Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel”.
• Silencer's "Death, pierce me" and "Sterile Nails And Thunderbowels" are some of the most disturbing black metal tracks ever recorded. Not only by his voice but also because of the gloomy atmosphere from the guitars. To make it worse, most of the YouTube videos add footage from Begotten (an already fucked-up movie) to their tracks.
  • Actually, the band itself can probably count as a major case of this trope. A Swedish suicidal black metal band who released one album, fronted by one Nattramn, who has an interesting backstory. He's a paranoid schizophrenic who was institutionalized. There are also rumors that he attempted to kill a six-year old girl with an axe, took psychiatric ward workers hostage, tried to kill himself and the cops and that he cut off his own hands and replaced them with pigs' legs. The last is only supported by a well-known disturbing picture of Nattramn though, so it's false, but who knows what other fucked up things he has done. He also has the most deranged and psychotic vocals you'll ever hear.
    • It was actually his brother that attempted to kill the girl and committed suicide when the cops came. That said, Nattramn was no bastion of sanity himself, and actually was institutionalized after his brother's suicide. And the album he wrote while he was in the asylum was arguably creepier than Silencer's Death, Pierce Me was.
• Celtic Frost: The music video for "A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh."
  • Actually, Monotheist in general is this trope.
    • Considering that Monotheist surpasses the Darker and Edgier aspect, especially with "Triptych". Brr...
  • "Tears in a Prophet's Dream", a Mind Screw instrumental track on To Mega Therion.
• "1349", if you know your history^note 1349 was the year the Black Plague spread to Scandinavia. It came on a ship where the entire crew was dead and the hull was filled with rats, has quite the chilling name. The title-track off Hellfire packs enough nightmare fuel for the album (not counting the other songs). The last minute is filled with nothing but the sounds of something burning and a dark Evil Laugh.
• "Bathory". Much like 1349, the name alone is spooky if you know your history, alluding to Elizabeth Báthory, known for being a pre-modern Serial Killer, allegedly kidnapping, torturing, and murdering dozens of young peasant girls and drained her victims of their blood so that she could bathe in it.
  • Quorthon's vocals on their black metal albums sound like they were ripped straight from Hell itself.
  • The album cover◊ for their debut looks downright evil.
  • "Reaper", also from their debut. Quorthon's vocals sound outright deranged, which isn't helpful given some of the lyrics:
  I love the sight of having you down and open wide
  The smell of a dead woman's flesh drives me fucking wild
  I have to got you in my grasp now
  there is no need to escape
  I'll penetrate you, every virgin needs a rape
  • "Necromansy" also has similar vocals with an absolutely evil sounding chorus
  Descend from blackened skies
  On soundless magic wings
  To spread the word of Satan!
  And live in eternal sin!
  • Equimanthorn from Under the Sign of the Black Mark is probably the angriest sounding song in the band's entire discography. It is also noteworthy that this song was featured on the soundtrack of Gummo, a film infamous for its bleak and ugly atmosphere.
  • The outro track on all of their early albums. A low Gregorian chant punctuated by a Heartbeat Soundtrack drum.
• Hellhammer: "Triumph of Death" has some pretty messed up lyrics at top of the already grim-sounding guitars, as shown below.
  "When...you... / Have...been... / Down...in your grave... / ALIVE!!!"
• The bootleg cover of Nastrond's ''Todeslaut'' features a band member with blood dripping all over his chest.
• Although King Diamond isn't really a black metal act (usually a mixture of Gothic Metal and Speed Metal), it is Nightmare Fuel enough to be considered as a honorary member of the black metal scene for reasons below
  • Albums about living paintings, corpses made into puppets by a deranged magician and are very aware and alive, ground glass in dinner... His album concepts are pure made of nightmares.
  • Same goes for his corpse paint, which started the trend of terrifying makeup for years to come.
  • Thanks to King's vocal skills, he manages to turn an offering of tea into this in the ending of "Them".
  "I bet you're dying for a cup of tea."
  • The ending of Give Me Your Soul...Please: "I'm moving on to THIS house."
• Venom's song, "Buried Alive" from their iconic Black Metal album is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. The pained breathing of Cronos' in the intro along with the desperation in his voice at during the first verse of the song add another layer of atmosphere to the song. Definitely not for someone who is claustrophobic.

  I tear at the lid, my fingers they bleed
  Is this happening to me, or is it just a dream?

  • The ending to "In Nomine Satanas". It can only be described as Cronos' maddened ranting punctuated with the screams of Hell's tortured souls.
  • Their lovely chant in reverse.
  • The song "Black Metal", the one responsible for all the Nightmare Fuel the genre would adopt later on, has a gnarly, menacing intro sound that not even your worst nightmares can conjure.
• While most bands fantasize about war and glorify violence they have never witnessed, the war metal band Damaar (Arabic: دمار) hail from Lebanon, where war perpetually looms, adding a layer of Realism-Induced Horror that few other bands can even hope to match.
• Xasthur: This ambient black metal project created what can only be described as the din-hordes of Mordor marching through all nine layers of Hell.
• Witchaven's album covers are very dark and bone-chilling in nature. Witchaven Terrorstorm has a monstrous creature armed with gigantic Kalashnikovs shooting down people and destroying buildings, Unholy Thrash Attack has Satan creating Armageddon with the army of his and their demonic wolves (with the uncensored version being even worse, depicting Satan himself RAPING A WOMAN SCREAMING FOR HELP WHILE SHE'S BEING BEHEADED) with the help of his minions and Blood Sacrifice features Satan taking and impaling on a sword a fully developed baby taken right before birth right from the mother's womb.
• Much of Abruptum's music is extremely dark and unsettling even by black metal standards thanks to its heavy influence from Harsh Noise and power electronics, making every song they record extremely difficult to sit through. De Profundis Mors Vas Cousumet has vocals that sounds like as if Satan himself recorded them.
• Sortsind's Skumring is pure dissonant noise with And I Must Scream moments on top.
• Still believe Christian black metal is tamer and Lighter and Softer? Well, Christageddon's self titled song proved otherwise.
• Jute Gyte's micro tuned experimental black metal isn't the most pleasant to listen.
• Some consider many of Burzum's black metal melodies (especially Filosofem) to be this with their dark droning and overall distorted character. He himself as a literal convicted murderer and arsonist can qualify for many people. On the other hand, some of his ambient material can almost qualify as Sweet Dreams Fuel ("Tomhet" is a good example), and although he is a bigoted murderer, he comes off as such a bumbling Cloudcuckoolander most of the time that the intimidation factor at least is wholly diffused.
  • As narmy as "War" is, the lyrics are indeed incredibly dark and do fit the harrowing riffs.
• Sodom:
  • In The Sign Of The Evil
    • "Outbreak of Evil". To quote one YouTube commentator":
    "the first 35 seconds sounds like you're taking an elevator down to the rotting pits of hell, Dante's Inferno style"
  • The intro to "Burst Command til War" features the sound of a nuclear siren and Tom Angelripper unleashing some of the most inhuman screams in the band's entire discography. The lyrics of nuclear war aren't exactly cheery either.
  • Expurse of Sodomy
    • "My Atonement" begins as a fine melody only shattered by a riff that gets more aggressive over the song. If it wasn't enough, the way Tom Angelripper announces the song in Mortal Way of Live just makes it worse.
  • "Nuclear Winter", backed by Tom Angelripper's horrifying lyrics about nuclear war, thrash riffs and the nuclear explosions along with guitar feedback — It's certainly a horrifying opener to their first venture to thrash.
  • The title track features lyrics detailing a Vietnam War soldier going paranoid, with a chorus that can easily be interpreted for PTSD.
  Persecution Mania, driven me mad
  Persecution Mania, tremendous dreams
  Persecution Mania, getting mentally ill
  Persecution Mania, alarmed about my life
  • "Bombenhagel" has an extremely ominous sounding bass tab and equally dark lyrics about the bombings of cities by the Nazi Luftwaffe, ending with a foreboding guitar rendition of the German national anthem.
    • War's cover of the song only its increases its horrific nature there.
• Things get even freakier when Hentai ^note Definitely NOT something that first comes to your mind about black metal, considering its Anglo-Swedish-Norwegian origins, but surprise surprise, hentai from Japan has managed to come contact with black metal all the way to here in Europe. gets thrown into the mix (yes, you read that right). A black metal band named Vaginal Ass just did it with their album Black Metal Hentai Wanking and most of the songs are graphic depictions of rape, even the album cover looks creepy with tortured naked anime girls. And is it terrifying? Yes, it fucking is! So you have Satanic, Pagan, Christian, communist, Jihadist and neo-Nazi bands trying to one-up each other in terms of darkness and abrasiveness, then hentai have managed to enter the black metal scene and makes the already fucked-up things even more fucked-up. You know a genre is chaotic if you can fit all this in and make it even partially working. Apparantly, something like "H-Black Metal", shouldn't exist, but it does.
• Watain:
  • Erik has a tendency to advocate violence and terrorism in interviews, all the while rarely ever dropping his polite tone.
    • Watch or read any interview of his. The "wtf?" creeps in when you realize he's not kidding about anything he says.
  • The song, "Satan's Hunger", and the following instrumental track, "Withershins" are just so damn eerie and sinister.
  • Then there's this gem from the title track off of Sworn To The Dark:
  The all-defying pendulum
  Of radiant conviction
  So determined in its pace
  Pounding now through flesh and bone
  Like a hammer through a child
  • "Stellarvore" is a menacing, claustrophobic 8-minute song about a terrible force awakening to devour the cosmos and destroy all life as we know it.
    • The preceding instrumental track, "Dead But Dreaming", (its title, an obvious Shout-Out to The Call of Cthulhu) adds new layers to that sense of claustrophobia.
  • The middle of "Holocaust Dawn" is an unsettling cacophony of violins, coupled with some rather cryptic lyrics. Spoken lyrics. May also double as a Tear Jerker.
  Mind not my burden
  Although it is the weight of all the sins
  Their harvester awaits at the end of my road
  Mind not my disfigurements
  Although they are the pains of all flesh
  For I run with the wolves at night
  And quenchless is their hunger
• New York-based trio Imperial Triumphant are no slouch either in terms of sheer spookiness. Their music fuses traditional black metal musicianship with freeform and dissonant jazz elements in the vein of tech-death bands like Cynic and Gorguts, mixed with uncannily pristine art for a genre known for its rawness. The end result is chaotic, horrifyingly leftfield black metal that evokes the nauseating glitz and glam of the rich that get richer as the rest of the world crumbles around them.
• Tempel's Mountain not only paints a dark and grim landscape, but it also creates a tense atmosphere that only gets more nerve-wracking as the song progresses.
• There is even a creepypasta based on real black metal-related murders, and it is just as scary as their real-life counterparts despite being a role reversal for murderers and victims.
• Uninitiated listeners might find Revenge's music to be completely terrifying, and rightly so, given their nature as a bestial black metal band. Just about every song they have made are closer to frenetic, rabid bursts of crazed shrieking and grinding noise than music in any conventional sense, with the breakdown in the middle of "Wolf Slave Protocol (Choose Your Side)" and the beginning guitar solo in "Death Heritage (Built Upon Sorrow)" being two particularly horrifying examples of their musical brutality. In an interview from when he was in Conqueror, James Read warned fans of melodic music to not waste their money on his band's albums.
• Myrkur: Most, if not all of Mareridt, not helped by the information about Amalie's Creator Breakdown caused by sleep paralysis and the amount of hatred (and death threats) over the project lead to the album's creation.
• Anaal Nathrakh:
  • "Regression to the Mean" is a great example - it has a heavily distorted air-raid siren blaring in the distance, a choir in the background offsetting that, and Atilla Csihar's ominous growls, which are then distorted even more to create a truly unnerving soundscape.
  • I Am The Wrath Of Gods And The Desolation Of The Earth Music is easily one of the scariest things that you'll ever listen to, even if you're a fan of goregrind, death metal and extreme music in general. It may not the most brutal song of all time, but it's a good contender for most totally fucking necro song to ever exist in the history of music.
• Gnaw Their Tongues. Everything that it has produced sounds closer to an auditory hellscape of pure madness, dread, and nihilistic despair than music in any conventional sense, even by the standards of black metal. Behold.
  • Hell, most of Mories' projects also count. Aderlating basically takes the ambient elements of GTT and takes them to their horrific conclusion, De Magia Verterum take black metal and twists it into something that's shouldn't even be recognizable, and Black Mouth of Spite can best be described as Gnaw Their Tongues meets bestial black metal. It should say something that Mories himself decided that he needed to focus on more positive material via Seirom due to how utterly terrifying the rest of his discography is.
• Stalaggh: This vaguely Black Metal-related noise project consists of the sound of insane people straight out of mental wards locked up together in cathedrals, toppling over each other frantically while shrieking endlessly and inadvertently evoking the sound of the complete chaos, confusion and all-consuming sorrow lurking in the most base end of the human psyche, and is pretty much the most unnerving thing you could ever hope to listen to. The "performers" supposedly consented to take part in these recordings, though it's been called into question whether anyone that far gone into mental instability can really consent to being exploited for art in this way; thus, Stalaggh has always been a very controversial act and is often name-checked among Black Metal acts known for their often exaggerated crimes against humanity. (If you're wondering how this counts as Black Metal, there are trem riffs hidden in the cacophony occasionally, but they don't serve as much more than window dressing for obvious reasons) Listen here.
  • It's successor act Gulaggh is no better despite shifting to a more orchestral sound, as the album Vorkuta can attest to. If you thought the sound of screaming mental patients wasn't bad enough, how about the screams of children and rape victims? Brrr.
• Mgła: The album cover of Groza: A Nightmare Face screaming in horror. Fitting since the album's name is Polish for "The Terror".
• Cobalt: This will come with the territory of them being a Black Metal band for some people. McSorley's experiences in combat may also lend their music an authenticity some other metal acts may lack, which may make the albums he appeared on more frightening for some listeners. Even the non-metal pieces can be very unsettling, particularly the full-length version of "Ritual Use of Fire", which seems to have been specifically composed to be as unnerving as possible. The Scare Chord where McSorley shouts "You motherfucker!" stands out as a particularly obvious example of this, but the whole piece just sounds slightly wrong.
  • The Hidden Track on Gin could also count. It's a field recording of a prison chain gang singing the traditional song "Berta, Berta", and the whole time you can hear various background noises like the sound of rocks being broken apart with pickaxes, a guard shouting orders, and an Angry Guard Dog barking. Nothing really happens, but the atmosphere created is surprisingly creepy.
  • Additionally, "Ritual Use of Fire", but particularly the second part included on Eater of Birds, which feature some bizarrely distorted and possibly backmasked voices speaking, with added Paranoia Fuel.
• Cormorant: Aside from some of their more grotesque and horrific lyrics, the music itself sometimes invoke (or complement) this. Particularly the ends of "Two Brothers" with von Nagel's screaming and the heavily layered and distorted guitars, choral singing and string accompaniment in the last few minutes of the song "Hanging Gardens" sounding like something straight out of Hell.
• The Axis of Perdition: EVERYTHING THEY MADE, most notably the entirety of Deleted Scenes and Urfe, due to the hellish landscape of sounds and vocals, but of course the surreal story of Urfe going to Locus Eyre, encountering monsters, implied to have sex with Pylon, become mutilated, and eventually becoming a Humanoid Abomination that Ascends to a Higher Plane of Existence which then corrupts the world.
• Dissection:
  • Jon's suicide. While most people who commit suicide is either because of depression or mental health problems, Jon however committed suicide because he felt he had achieved everything he had done with his life and career. The fact he did it voluntarily is chilling enough.
  • Jon himself, especially in the early days. Among other things, he made a list of potential human sacrifices, one being his own girlfriend. He also supposedly had some involvement in a ritual that involved the mass slaughter of black cats.
• Zeal & Ardor: At their darkest, they can certainly qualify, between Manuel's insane Careful with That Axe, the oppressive atmosphere their music creates, and the at times incredibly dark lyrics. The title track of Stranger Fruit is a good example of this.
• Woods of Infinity: This underground Swedish band stood out in an already consciously transgressive genre by their pro-pedophilia themes. And it wasn't done in a silly or edgy way either. Songs like "A Love Story" doesn't feature any graphic sex, but is still repulsive enough to disturb even hardened metalheads. Then there's songs like "Genevere" where the murder of children is described in an almost sensual way, which makes it obvious that the writer was getting off on it. Lastly they also have some album covers featuring naked children. Since these obviously could be interpreted as child pornography, be very careful when googling this band. According to interviews with the band, the pedophilia themes are meant to be taken as a metaphor for social alienation, and a wish to find pure innocence and corrupt it. They noted that they noted that they've drawn condemnation and indignation from people who usually preach about the destruction of the universe and humanity in their lyrics. All in all, Woods of Infinity was one of the most genuinely disturbing bands in a genre where people were competing for that title.
• Leviathan: Basically everything about his music, but especially his screams, which are just inhuman. Then there's the hateful, despairing, and disjointed tone of the music itself. It really isn't surprising when you learn about the dude's Creator Breakdown.
  • Again, his album covers. Tentacles of Whorror might be the worst one, because of how obscene it is.
  • All of Scar Sighted is nightmarish, but the closing track, "Aphonos", might be one of the most apocalyptic, crushing things he's ever recorded. Between the brutalizing riff and Jef's tortured screams, it legitimately sounds like a nightmare. The haunting ambient outro doesn't help matters.
  I wanna see it in your face. I wanna see it in your eye. I wanna see it in your tears.
  • The chaotic atmosphere of the first two albums really add a sense of paranoia and sense of The Nothing After Death in The Tenth Sub-Level and the hateful fury of Tentacles of Whorror. Special points with songs such as "The Idiot Sun" and "Vexed and Vomit Hexed".
    • Even non-metal stuff is unnerving, the hauntingly depressive tone of the Lurker of Chalice debut and A Silhouette in Splinters can give a creepy vibe.
• Carach Angren: As over the top and cheesy the music is, it does not dissuade how horrifying the stories the band tells are:
  • Lammendam, focusing on the haunting of the Woman in White in the titular location of Lammendam. It is not a happy story and to the music doesn't help.
  • Where the Corpses Sink Forever arguably paints this, with multiple stories of war being shown to a soldier by seven demons (such as the suicide of a violinist over the horrors of war, a child killing his father and his spirit causing the same events to occur, a cannibal soldier, ect..) and forced to relieve them for all eternity.
• You think that transposing guitar riffs to bass would make it better? Think again! In fact, playing black metal riffs on a bass guitar only creates an even more grim sound, comparable to early Swedish death metal bands. Arphaxat has showed that you can get an even more nightmarish sound by playing all guitar parts on bass.
• As dark as Norwegian black metal gets, Japan can outdo Norway with the band Sigh - all of their material are more than terrifying enough to send chills down your spine.
• Utarm: Apocryphal Stories can be best described as a descent into complete insanity, and it's not hard to see why. Not only does the music creates a whole soundscape of emotions ranging from calm, almost circus-like music with spoken word to shredding black metal riffs to completely incomprehensible harsh noise with added screeches and demonic sounds as a bonus, it also has this album cover that looks like it was drawn by a child that has seen things beyond our comprehension.
• Unblack metal project Horde's "Thine Hour Hast Come" has very dark lyrics based on Isaiah 14, in which the king of Babylon tries to set himself above Yahweh. One lyric bluntly describes their punishment of being imprisoned in the depths of Hell as a Fate Worse than Death. We really do mean Christian black metal can be just as dark as their Satanic counterparts.
• Velvet Cacooon: The album Genevieve is predominantly fairly conventional ambient black metal with hints of shoegaze. But the last track, "Bete Noire", is 17 minutes of the most paranoia- and anxiety-inducing ambient electronica you will ever hear. Here's the first and second halves.
  • Genevieve had "Bete Noire", however they put it to high grounds with their final album Atropine, specifically focused on something can be described as "Bete Noire" if mixed with drugs and nightmares. "Funeral Noir" can give you an idea.
• Memetic Mutation can sometimes make things even worse, in effect making it even more Nightmare Fuel. You know how to bring even more clusterfuckery to black metal? Simple. Add Kotonoha Katsura from School Days in there. Watch how it means to add fuel to fire, and since School Days is known for gory ending (no less to Makoto's horrible personality), replacing Makoto with Euronymous and Varg imply a nightmare beyond the realms of imagination (The fanfic Mayhem Days has shown the idea... and it did not go well at all).
  • Oh and Doki Doki Literature Club! too, joins the genre's gloomy and terrifying territory. There's always something disturbing when the visual novel's psychological horror gets to interbreed with black metal's extreme Satanism and mythology-based horror, making the Doki girls look much less cute and more of Humanoid Abomination. And since Monika is capable of Reality Warping, she could easily cause chaos and utter disaster far surpassing any other atrocities done by black metal musicians, fictional or Real Life.

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