Venom - Witching Hour (live 1985)
This is where it all begins really - they called their second album Black Metal and coined the genre's name in the process, while the subject matter (Satan, Elizabeth Bathory, being buried alive, "hot for teacher" scenarios, EVIL) provided inspiration for black metal lyricists for decades to come. Coming on like a cruder and less sophisticated Motorhead, Venom were instrumental in the development of the genre as well as thrash and speed metal. This cut, from their first album Welcome To Hell (I reckon the album art is even more EVIL than Black Metal's) has been covered memorably (read: badly yet awesomely EVIL) by Mayhem.
Mercyful Fate - Curse of the Pharaohs (Melissa, 1983)
Danish metallers Mercyful Fate's King Diamond gets black-metal-founding-father points for helping to pioneer badass corpsepaint and having a human skull (named Melissa, also the title of their first album) and an inverted cross made of human bones on stage. This is a totally sweet (read: EVIL!) song about tomb robbing in Egypt! \m/
Bathory - Massacre (Under The Sign Of The Black Mark, 1987)
Alongside Venom, Sweden's Bathory are one of the most influential of the first-wave black metal bands. For the first time, some of the key signifiers of the genre really emerge prominently (blasting tempos, super fast guitar, main dude Quorthon's strangulated and EVIL screaming). Also, these guys are notable for not really playing live much (if at all!), which is pretty common for black metal bands. I mean, how can you be a misanthropic loner in a room full of people watching their favourite band?
Sarcófago - INRI (1987)
Brazilian extreme thrash upstarts who began when their founding vocalist Wagner Lamounier left Sepultura in its embryonic stages to create the most extreme and EVIL band ever. These guys also won the Wikipedia/Internet shit-talking award for the first band to don EVIL corpsepaint and call it as such. Whilst the extremely lo-fi production probably was what the band had to make do with at the time, this EVIL and raw approach has long since been a trademark of the style.
Tormentor - Anno Domini (1988)
Hailing from Hungary, Tormentor are a bit more obscure, yet no less EVIL, than the infamous Norwegian bands of second-wave Black Metal. Their awesome vocalist Attila Csihar has not only gone on to front Mayhem Mk. 2, but he has collaborated with the likes of Sunn O))) and Oren Ambarchi. Notable for incorporating synthesisers into their epic riffs, Tormentor only managed to put out one record during their first incarnation, 1988's Anno Domini.
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