The 10 Most Satanic Metal Bands

let me guess, you must be catholic. since you specify on Behemoth that they are based on Paganism. just so you know Paganism is NOT satanic but catholics are.

ok, I problobably not be back here.  I was on a hunt for a disremembered album and stumbled across.  anyrate I can't buy more alcohol for 3 hours and so I must eat a frozen pizza and try to chill, peace.

ye, I don't buy int satan, but toying with him lyrically and all to get a point, tho many may miss the point makes for good subject matter, and I like the sound the vibe whatnot, but to see what is what for youself and not be like the news says those kids did what they did because.....

I think He does, however I am not familiar withany of the bands listed. I found then lost and finally recalled, some superior music on this album Peaceville Vol. 4, ha I kept thinkin I know it looked like the ozzy cover and searching images, there an lo behold good stuff.

ye,these bands here look like faggot posers

THEY SHOULD ALL BE OUT RITE SHUT DOWN & BANNED EACH & EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM !!!!

THIS SHITE GIVES HEAVY METAL A BAD NAME , SATAN HAS NO PLACE IN HEAVY METAL AT ALL !!!

They should change this list to "The only Satanic Bands I know about."

This list is absolutely terrible.

Whomever wrote this has NO IDEA what they're talking about.

Here's an honorable mention out of a list of probably thousands...Infernal Majesty. 1987's "None Shall Defy" is a masterpiece IMO, and definitely a deserted island pick for me.

JAJAJAJA WHO DID THIS?...  A 10 YEARS OLD KID OR WHAT

Varg was a fill in on De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas for Necrobutcher, the ORIGINAL bass player. do your homework.

Gorgoroth? They're more satanic than all these bands

Satanism is shallow and pretentious, both as a philosophy and as a religion. I can't believe anyone takes it seriously. Does Glenn Benton realize that the upside-down cross is actually known by Catholics as the St. Peter's cross, in reference to how that saint was crucified, and that certain Catholic circles wear it as a necklace? According to tradition, Peter refused to be crucified right-side up, since he felt himself unworthy of dying in the same manner as Christ. The Pope (who is said to be St. Peter's successor) even has an upside-down cross in his own papal chair! So essentially, wearing and/or displaying the St. Peter's cross represents your subservience to Christ. I guess this is fitting, given how idiotic Satanism is to begin with. 

They missed Gorgoroth, Burzum, Watain and Acheron.

Gorgoroth anyone?

Dissection? Burzum? Really?

burzum, limbonic art ..

Really, no Deathspell Omega on this list? Neither Akercocke? Nor Celtic Frost? A f--kin' blasphemy.

Deathspell Omega? Leviathan? are you guys even trying?

I agree with most on this list, but how could you leave these guys out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-f25Y9CWLU

Try to find a more PURE Satanic band then this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYq6mBIJprM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-VHTiHWYjo

Danzig is busy getting punched out,,,, and being gay.

DANZIG!? ARE YOU JOKING!?

Where's Danzig?

Where's Danzig?

confused lil boys hahaha

Without King Diamond and Ghost, this article misses the mark pretty badly.

most of you are wrong in general anyway...most of these bands do not "worship' satan,that would require an acknowledgement of his existence and all of these dudes are  way too smart to do that..,,i mean if all of you are going to split hairs and mention all these bands that you deem as 'satanic' then NONE of these bands fit that category and they will be the first to tell you that

Stop whining, there is dozens of satanic bands out there, and you have to choose 10, not every band can be mentioned on such short terms...

no slayer?

@jediofmetal What the fuck you are babling about

@Yeterel Yep. This lists only few mainstream bands.

@barlowe2003  If we are talking about anti-christianity, the inverted cross does not mean St. Peter's cross, it's a total bullshit. The cross is the symbol of christianity, the inverted cross is the symbol of inverted-christianity aka anti-christianity. Symbols have more than one meaning, it depends in which context you would like to use them. Just take the peace sign for example. That means peace in modern usage, however that's a death rune. Invert the peace sign, you have the anti-peace symbol however it means the rune of life too.

With this logic even christianity can be "shallow and pretentious" because christians does not realize that the cross is an ancient symbol either. It had nothing to do with christianity, they just adopted it.

@barlowe2003

Satanism is a  mere reflection of Christianity.

Therefore it can't be anything, but 'shallow and pretentious', 'both as a philosophy and as a religion'.
Explains why people take it seriously.

Glenn Benton probably does know that the inverted cross is a St. Peter's cross, for all I know he might even  know the story behind the inverted crucifixion.

But, truth be told, most of the present day Christians know it as a sign of the devil/apostasy.
The story behind it?

Not a clue, I'm not a historian.

Just as people nowadays believe that an inverted pentagram is a sign of the devil (evil) and the 'regular' pentagram a sign of god (good).

They used to be symbols used by pagans - yes, those that were massacred, because they refused to believe in a deity, which wasn't theirs and what little survivors of a tribe remained where Christened - (or as Christians refer to them: heathens.) who worshipped mother Earth, a cult which outdates Christianity by 4000+ years. (Yes, every religion is a cult.)

Satanism is equally idiotic as Christianity - since they are eachothers exact opposites, one can't exist without the other; what else are they gonna frighten their followers into obediance with? - nonetheless my favour goes out to Satanism, simply because it's the outcast, hated by (almost?) every other religion and their followers.
(Most of the bands featured in this article aren't a reference, because they merely use Satanism as a façade or as a stage-act.)

Now, before anyone can make allegations towards my person, i'll do it  myself.

I'm an atheist, have been since birth (I was never baptised).
I have no intentions to mock any of the above mentioned religions, I was just trying to debunk what he was saying

@satanen  

That'd be this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFZZaS2hYD8&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSqKbwNjL_I

Sorry fellas this is BlackMetal !

@pskully57  

King is not satanic, but horror. And Ghost is baby shit with couple of OK songs

@pskully57  Ghost, that gave me a good laugh.

@barbertj23 Actually, Watain is more about death worship, especially would you know that if you've A. ever interviewed them (Vibrations Of Doom Magazine, issue #45, and B. been to one of their live shows. I've seen them three times and the smell of death is always around... :) King Diamond IS a professed Satanist, but you don't read much of that in his music. Still, I would mention Mercyful Fate, they seemed to include more satanistic lyrics that the King. 

Still, dead on with the other bands you listed... I think they mean bands who write about satanism and profess a fondness for it AND bands who "practice what they preach." Don't know if I would have put Mayhem above Deicide however, I think Deicide probably deserves the number one spot, but then again Benton never murdered anyone or burnt down churches... For "trueness," I guess that puts Mayhem at #1...

@barbertj23 watain does not worship the devil...

@barbertj23   watain are not satanists

@barbertj23 You are so correct.  Whoever wrote this list finds their metal at hot topic.  total fuckin weaksauce article, please OC weekly stick to writing about trendy high end taco shops and riding on the LA weekly's coat tails.

@barbertj23 or ondskapt, ofermod, heresi, sorhin, triumphator, vorum, armagedda, the list goes on endlessly at how pedestrian this list is. f em it's typical web "journalism".

@Andrea Schiavio  most of the members of slayer are christians

@Andrea Schiavio no slayer dude. they don't worship the devil. go back to hot topic.

@karelkebreugel @barlowe2003 dont satanism is not a reflection a christanity in fact satanists dont believe in gods or devils it is a atheistic religion and satan is a symbol of nature NOT a deity get your fucking facts straight

@karelkebreugel @barlowe2003

"Satanism is equally idiotic as Christianity - since they are eachothers exact opposites, one can't exist without the other; what else are they gonna frighten their followers into obediance with?"

Now you’ve successfully paraphrased the ninth Satanic statement. No matter, it is false. Christianity lasted 1900+ years fine without Satanism, thank you very much. Satan himself only has a few appearances in the Bible, and none of the church fathers considered him terribly important. It was only the imaginations of certain writers like Dante, Milton, etc., who expanded on Satan, and subsequent churches placed more emphasis on hellfire and damnation in the wake of the Reformation. The Medieval church didn’t even acknowledge the existence of so-called witches until the middle of the 15th century, and there is no evidence that secret Satanic rites and coven meetings ever existed in the first place. Some Renaissance era occultists appeared to have practiced a form of theurgy that included summoning and controlling devils, but they certainly did not follow anything resembling LaVeyan Satanism. Like Wicca, Satanism is very recent, and it has an invented history.

The Church of Satan was founded by Anton LaVey in the 1966, who merely ripped off the philosophies of Nietzsche, Crowley, Rand, and the Marquis de Sade (to name a few). But there was little he wrote that hadn’t been said before, and better, by these other people.

Now, if you think the relationship between Satanism and Christianity is a perfect mirror of interplay or the they are “equal” in anything, I should ask you to name the great Satanic philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, artists, and musicians. Where are the great Satanic charities, hospitals, institutions of learning, or works of art and literature? What is its legacy to Western Civilzation other than creating a counter-cultural movement that appeals mostly to angry teenagers, inspiring the clichés of heavy metal lyrics and a few decent horror movies?

The importance of Christianity to the full flowering of Western civilization is pretty difficult to overstate, but rather than expound upon why our notions of modern philosophy, charity, human rights, tolerance, trade, economics, international law, educational systems, and even some of the foundations of the natural sciences are rooted in Christian thought, I’ll simply make a few comparisons.

 Who are the Satanic philosophers, aside from LaVey? Can we retroactively grant the likes of Nietzsche, Rand, de Sade, and Crowley as well? That’s a paltry list compared to Augustine, Aquinas, Occham, Pascal, Bacon, Butler, Locke, Berkeley, Ignatius, Keirkegaard, Kant, Adler, and Plantinga.

 The Literary giants of Satanism? Ignoring the fact that the Bible itself is the cornerstone of Western literarure, I’ll be generous and count, say, George Bernard Shaw, Stanislaw Prybyszweski, and Jules Michelet as honorary Satanists. Again, this is a pathetic list when Christianity can claim the likes of Shakespeare, Dante, Chaucer, Dickens, Austen, Tolstoy, Swift, Dostoyevsky, Chesteron, Macdonald, O’Connor, Lewis, and Tolkien.

Who are the great Satanic artists, and what have they contributed? I don’t know, but it can’t be the ones who contribute to most metal album covers, given that they simply tend to be parodies of Christian art. Satire or parody is the lowest form of art. Fantasy and imaginative realism are among the highest, and there is no shortage of such artists drawn from among the pool of Christianity.

Now who are the great Satanic musicians? Aside from a handful of the most distinguished black/death metal bands, who do we have? Marolyn Manson? Diamanda Galas, perhaps? Utterly pathetic if Christianity can claim Mozart, Bach, Haydn, Handel, Mendelssohn, Dvorak, and Stravinsky.

Who are the great Satanic scientists? Are there even any Satanic scientists? The list of important scientists is simply too staggering to name, even if we narrow it down to Catholic scientists, Catholic clergy, or to Jesuit priests specifically.

What about great pagan scientists, then? Can you name any? Because I can’t. There are perhaps a handful of respectable neo-pagan historians (who wouldn’t disagree with any of what I’ve written above), but this is nothing compared even to modern Christian intellectuals.  

Even if we were to pit every pre-Christian scientist (with whom modern pagans have no solidarity whatsoever) in tandem with the greatest minds among the Satanic community (generously counting the “not-really-satanists” above) against the Jesuits alone, it would still be a ridiculous curb-stomp battle.

"nonetheless my favour goes out to Satanism, simply because it's the outcast, hated by (almost?) every other religion and their followers."

The Church of Satan is peopled by yuppies and bohemians who know nothing about oppression, degradation, alienation, persecution, suffering, evil, or despair. The entire history of Judaism and a good portion of the history of Christianity, on the other hand, consists of people who struggled to overcome these very things. The whole narrative of Exodus, for instance, tells of a god who frees slaves. The Jews and Christians are called to care about people who are not of their own, because of the god they worship, who teaches them not to love the world or despise it simply, but to love its goodness as a manifestation of a goodness that is eternal. But it’s easy to take certain ideas for granted when they were revolutionary for their time. If the world speaks about human rights now, about the dignity of the poor, it is because we have first heard the words of Moses, the prophets, and, of course, a certain Jesus of Nazareth.

Anyway, my rant is over. I actually listen to some of the bands on this list. I may be of the opinion that you need not agree with an artist’s message in order to admire his or her work, but I grow a bit weary of the childishly insipid anti-Christian invective that is so characteristic of the metal ethos.   

@karelkebreugel @barlowe2003 Given the general formatting of comments on this site, this will be my only response to the above.

"Glenn Benton probably does know that the inverted cross is a St. Peter's cross, for all I know he might even  know the story behind the inverted crucifixion."

Either way, someone who burns an upside-down cross into his own forehead is a moron.

"They used to be symbols used by pagans - yes, those that were massacred, because they refused to believe in a deity, which wasn't theirs and what little survivors of a tribe remained where Christened - (or as Christians refer to them: heathens.) who worshipped mother Earth, a cult which outdates Christianity by 4000+ years. (Yes, every religion is a cult.)"

Neo-pagan practices have almost nothing to do with ancient pagan beliefs, and modern pagans have no solidarity whatsoever with either the ancients or with anyone accused of witchcraft throughout history. Wicca, Thelema, LaVayanSatanism, and most (but not all) forms Hermeticism are thoroughly modern belief systems. This does not mean that they are false, but their pretensions of being ancient certainly are. The false histories of Gerald Gardner, Margaret Murray, Montague Summers, and Jules Michelet, have each been thoroughly debunked. Philosophically, they are post-modern religions of the post-modern age, drawing inspiration from Romanticism, occult revival, and Jungian archetypes.

Gardner lifted much of his material from Alister Crowley, who, in turn, based his beliefs largely on the writings of A. E. Waite, Eliphas Levi, and John Dee, all of whom were Christian occultists. Their systems were based on esoteric, syncretistic, and kabbalistic traditions, all of which had roots going back at least to the Renaissance, when people freely mixed religion, magic, and science however they pleased. In actual Renaissance Era occult manuals such as the Grimorium Verum, the Key of Solomon, the Enochian Invocations of John Dee, and the Grimoire of Pope Honorious (that's right--the pope wrote an occult manual), the invocations appeal specifically to the Christian God, the saints, Jesus Christ, etc. to cast out demons, command the spirit world, and otherwise bring your own will into fruition using magic. Virtually every accused witch, whether he or she confessed to using spellcraft or not, was a Christian. Of course, there was little in the way of actual witch hunts in the middle ages prior to the publication of Malleus Malelificarum (which was picked up as the de facto witch hunter’s manual in secular courts despite being officially banned by the church), but that's another story entirely.

Ironically, modern pagan religions probably have more Christian DNA than they do ancient pagan DNA. Any time prior to the mid 19th century, almost all occultists were believing Jews and Christians, albeit unusual ones.

@mlaingold @pskully57 King's solo stuff might not be full of references to Satan, but Mercyful Fate was highly satanic in the '80s.

@jsamoulsmith277 @karelkebreugel @barlowe2003

All Religion sucks..
I agree with Jeffries:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WPvSo8AYdM