"Blackground" Information

Yeah, I figure some is probably needed. Lifted straight from Wiki (though nonetheless accurate) -

Black metal is a type of extreme heavy metal music that started in the early 1980s. The genre is characterized by an aggressive and abrasive sound, coupled with a dark atmosphere and rejection of Judeo-Christian values.

The first bands with black metal characteristics included Bathory, Mercyful Fate, Hellhammer/Celtic Frost and Venom. These bands were mostly thrash metal bands that formed the prototype for black metal; they are referred to collectively as the First Wave. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a Second Wave emerged in Norway, including prominent bands like Darkthrone and Mayhem. Although there is no well-defined Third Wave, modern black metal bands have incorporated new musical and lyrical trends into their music.

Black metal has been met with considerable hostility from mainstream culture, mainly because of the misanthropic, hateful, and anti-Judeo-Christian attitude of bands contributing to the genre. Additionally, a few black metal bands have been known to have associations with church burnings, murder, and National Socialism."

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And here's some info on the Second Wave, which is what I'll mostly be discussing -

The "second wave" of black metal in the early 1990s came in part with the rise of Norwegian bands such as Darkthrone, Mayhem, Burzum, Gorgoroth, Immortal, and Emperor. This wave not only added new atmospheric elements, but many of these bands would also be responsible for a rash of criminal controversy, as seen below. Classical elements were also introduced to a small degree and popularized the genre for a growing underground audience. Philosophically, an abrasive anti-Right Hand Path sentiment became a must for any band to be finalized as "black metal." In fact, bands that didn't exemplify such beliefs through actions beyond their music were often criticized by extremists within black metal's subculture. A dark, misanthropic mentality was complemented visually with the use of corpsepaint, which was also most prevalent during this wave as a statement to separate black metal bands from other rock bands of the era.

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An abraded, very low fidelity recording style was common in most black metal at the time, and was often intentional to preserve an underground quality of the genre. Sometimes artists would branch off into related subgenres, such as death metal, keeping their Satanic and occult mentality intact. Such a style has been deemed "Blackened Death Metal." Mayhem's career, for example, began mostly in the death/black roots, moved to almost pure black, then towards death again in their later career. It was experimentation like this that aided black metal's growth, but would ultimately mean the end of the second wave by the mid-1990s, as more modern black metal bands started to raise their production quality and introduce new instrumentation such as synthesizers (commonly seen in industrial metal) and full-symphony orchestras.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_metal