SPK were an Australian industrial music and noise music group formed in 1978. They were fronted by mainstay member, Graeme Revell on keyboards and percussion. In 1980 the group travelled to the United Kingdom where they issued their debut album, Information Overload Unit. In 1983 Sinan Leong joined on lead vocals. The group disbanded in 1988. Two years later Revell and Leong relocated to the United States, where Revell works as a Hollywood film score composer. According to Australian rock music historian Ian McFarlane, SPK were "at the forefront of the local post-punk, electronic/experimental movement of the late 1970s ... [their] music progressed from discordant, industrial-strength metal noise to sophisticated and restrained dance-rock with strange attributes".
Moonsorrow is a Finnish pagan metal band formed in Helsinki in 1995. Musically, the band incorporates elements of black metal and folk metal in their sound. The band call their sound "epic heathen metal" and try to distance themselves from the term "Viking metal". They have distanced themselves from other folk metal bands, emphasising that their music is pagan and spiritual and is challenging for its listeners, rather than happy or danceable. The band members have varying levels of pagan belief but they draw on pagan spirituality for lyrics and inspiration.
Thorns is a Norwegian black metal band that formed in 1989 and was part of the early Norwegian black metal scene. They made two highly influential demos in the early 1990s, Grymyrk and Trøndertun, but have only released one full-length album.
Blut Aus Nord is a French black metal band from Mondeville, Calvados, that has incorporated avant-garde and industrial elements in its music.
Arkhon Infaustus is a French blackened death metal band from Paris. They formed in 1997, are signed to Osmose Productions, and have released four albums to date.
The Electric Hellfire Club was an American industrial rock band mixing elements of glam metal, techno, gothic rock, and psychedelia. The band's lyrics contain tongue-in-cheek references to sin, violence, sex, devil worship and similar themes. The band also made use of sampling, mainly from low-budget horror films.
Audrey Horne are a hard rock band from Bergen, Norway. The band took its name from Sherilyn Fenn's character in the cult TV series Twin Peaks. Although some of the band's members play or have previously played in black metal bands like Enslaved and Gorgoroth, Audrey Horne's music is far removed from the black metal genre, and can be described as heavy and melodic classic rock, similar to bands like Van Halen, Kiss, Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy, Ozzy Osbourne, Iron Maiden, Faith No More and Alice In Chains.
Dødheimsgard is a Norwegian extreme metal band formed in 1994. Dødheimsgard originally played black metal, but 1999's 666 International saw them change their style into experimental and avant-garde/industrial metal. In 2000, they shortened their name to DHG.
For all tid is the debut studio album by Norwegian symphonic black metal band Dimmu Borgir. It was released in 1995 through No Colours. It was remastered and re-released in 1997 through their new label Nuclear Blast with the front cover art in full color and the entire Inn i evighetens mørke EP added. It is the band's only studio album on which Shagrath is on drums, Tjodalv on guitar and Silenoz on vocals.
Solefald is a Norwegian avant-garde metal/black metal band that was formed by members Lars Are "Lazare" Nedland and Cornelius Jakhelln in August 1995, with Nedland singing and playing keyboard/synthesizer/piano and drums, and Jakhelln singing and playing guitar and bass. The duo experiment with a wide array of musical styles, frequently work on other projects, and rarely perform live under the Solefald name, leading them to describe themselves as "two stubborn goats pretending to be a band." According to the duo, their name is an Old Norse word for "sunset," taken from one of Theodor Kittelsen's paintings illustrating a poem of the same name by Theodor Caspari, published in the 1901 book Vintereventyr.
Abruptum is a Swedish black metal and dark ambient solo side-project band. It is run by Evil of Marduk, but the band was formed in 1989 by IT. All, Ext and Evil joined the band later. IT was one of the leaders of the True Satanist Horde, part of the Swedish Black metal scene. Euronymous, co-founder of Mayhem and founder of Deathlike Silence Productions, described Abruptum as "the audial essence of pure black evil".
Cradle of Thorns was an American rock band. Formed in 1988 in Bakersfield, California by singer Ty Elam, the band was initially defined by their gothic rock style. After releasing their debut album, Remember It Day, independently in 1990, the band signed with Triple X Records, and would come to be defined by a more dance music-oriented style influenced by heavy metal and industrial rock. In 1998, the band changed their name to Videodrone and signed with Korn's vanity label Elementree Records, releasing their self titled fourth album, Videodrone the following year, which featured a mix of industrial music and nu metal. Videodrone disbanded two years later, but reformed under their original name from 2007 to 2015.
Dornenreich is an Austrian melodic black metal band, founded in 1996. Alongside their initial metal sound, Dornenreich also regard their music as being neofolk influenced. They have released eight albums on Prophecy Productions.
Cadaveria, real name Raffaella Rivarolo, is an Italian musician famous for being one of the first women to enter the extreme metal scene in the early 1990s, as former vocalist and keyboard player of the symphonic black metal band Opera IX.
Astennu is the professional name of Australian heavy metal musician Jamie Stinson. His name is derived from a creature in Egyptian mythology.
On Thorns I Lay is a Greek death-doom metal and gothic metal band founded in Athens in 1992. The group has gone through different stylistic facets throughout its career, starting with brutal death metal in their early days, then transitioning to a blackened death doom symphonic style with their first EP, and later embracing atmospheric doom-death in their early albums and later gothic metal with their subsequent albums. On Thorns I Lay is among the bands of the first major gothic doom wave that systematized the principle of contrasting vocals known as the "beauty and the beast" style that became popular in the late 1990s. Towards the end of the first part of their career in the early 2000s, they shifted towards a more stripped-down and introspective rock-metal style. The band went on hiatus in 2006, for almost ten years. They reunited in 2015 and gradually returned to the doom-death style of their beginnings. They have released three albums since their reunion, and a new album is set to be released in October 2023. It is noteworthy that the group experienced a split in 2021-2022. Several of its members, including the singer, guitarist, and former drummer, left the band to reform their original band, Phlebotomy, thus reactivating a previous incarnation of the group under which they also released a record in 2023. Through the years the band's played in Greece and in Europe together with Dream Theater, In Flames, Anathema, Amorphis, Katatonia, Tiamat, The Gathering, Satyricon,Septic Flesh and many more.
Love Me in Black is the sixth solo album of the German female hard rock singer Doro Pesch. It was released in 1998, after the dissolution of her contract with Polygram/Vertigo. Her new label WEA decided to publish the album only in Europe.
Memoria Vetusta III - Saturnian Poetry is the eleventh studio album by French black metal band Blut Aus Nord. It was released on October 10, 2014, through Debemur Morti Productions. This is the third and last album of the 'Memoria Vetusta' trilogy. The album cover was painted by Kristian "Necrolord" Wåhlin, famous for his work with black metal bands such as Emperor, Dissection, and Bathory, and the layout was provided by Dehn Sora. It is also the first full-length album by Blut Aus Nord to feature Thorns on drums. In addition to positive reviews by critics, the album was also listed by Rolling Stone as the 13th best metal album of 2014.
Temple of Perdition is a black metal project that began in September 2017, between Ya'akov Nahash, Joonas Heikkinen, and Benainah, out of Texas in the United States and Finland. Shortly after their formation, the band signed with Vision of God Records.
Verminous is the ninth studio album by American melodic death metal band the Black Dahlia Murder. It was released on April 17, 2020, through Metal Blade Records. This is the band's final album to feature original member and lead vocalist Trevor Strnad before his death on May 11, 2022.
