In 1994, black metal was still shrouded in mystery for your average listener of heavy music. While the year marked the release of many of the genre’s landmark albums — Emperor’s In The Nightside Eclipse, Darkthrone’s Transilvanian Hunger, and Mayhem’s sonic tombstone De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, to name a few — the ghostly riffs, lo-fi production, and esoteric paganism of the scene left many potential listeners scratching their heads. This obviously didn’t phase the artists involved, as black metal’s central tenets had always included hostility and exclusivity, but it meant that for young metalheads looking for a way to access this lofty new genre, there were few if any points of entry. One album helped change that — a debut by...
