Were it not for Satanic Warmaster Darkthrone would still be playing death metal and Varg would've never killed Euronymous.
And don't you dare forget Mr. Werewolf's other massively influential band Armour. They created heavy metal in 2006. Respect.

That Armour album was pretty good.

I just remembered...... didnt Nargaroth invent all genres of extreme metal with his first demo released in 30 B.C. ?

I don’t want be rude with you but your knowledge of black metal is zero

Was ironic and sarcastic,anyway just don’t reply to me please.
Cause very post you made is only to contest my thinking…

You can have a knowledge of second wave but of third wave I have no rivals..

So please peace and love but ignore me…

Without Sw and Finland scene we would only have post metal shoegaze bands… From 2000 to now make a list of bands from Norway and Sweden and compare them with Finland.

I know maybe they are no nice,often have dumb lyrics etc but this is another question.

^Hate to burst ya bubble Lee but there are other extreme metal genres, not just BM and believe it or not there was extreme metal before the year 2000.

Yikes. ACAT Assessment needed. Nothing here makes sense.

I agree with you..

My post was to mention others names different from the usual suspects…
That all.

But no one can deny the impact of the Finnish scene at the beginning of the 2000s…

Furthermore, if I had to talk about influential black metal bands from the 2000s (or "third wave" as you want to call it) I would cite bands like Agalloch, Deathspell Omega, Darkspace, Alcest or Leviathan long before Satanic Warmaster. I don't think anyone doubts that they are a band that has influenced the scene in their country, but they are not even close to being the most influential bm band of the 2000's, much less the most influential extreme metal band.

I shouldnt even waste my time with a response to Satanic Warmaster, the fact that you would mention them in the same breathe as Slayer in terms of massive influence on extreme metal is absolutely embarrassing. However, setting that aside, Finnish scene alone, Behexen mops the floor with Satanic Warmaster.

Nice !!!

Mutiilation (hope this time agree)and Les Legions Noires
Sargeist Let the devil In(come on,say that is a bullshit)
Moonblood

You have to think of what influential means in music first to get something resembling a decent answer.

Influential for metal can be a couple things like making people want to play guitar (The average guitarist of a 2000s extreme metal band definitely started playing guitar because of Metallica).
Directly influencing the actual music of subsequent bands(Celtic Frost as good as any other candidate for winning for this category)
Lastly: changing the way people think of a genre completely (Venom absolutely the only choice here)

Personally I think the last category is the most important one. Venom was a fundamental shift in heavy guitar music, without Venom extreme metal as we know it would not have happened the way it did and certainly metal getting more extreme would have been delayed with a couple years compared with our own timeline coupled with a entirely different take on it. Maybe without Venom early extreme metal would be even more hardcore punk based. It is impossible to tell because I can't think of a single important early extreme metal band that was not influenced by Venom.

Ofcourse Venoms build upon what has been done before but that is the case with every innovative band. Every new genre comes out of a broader movement. No other band feels as detached from the broader movement than Venom in my eyes. Bathory and Celtic Frost arguably the only 2 bands that even get remotely into the same ballpark as Venom.

Look, I don't think anybody is saying that Satanic Warmaster, and even Mutiilation were not certainly very influential. They were, at least to a fair degree.

But the MOST influential Extreme band, going back clear to the early beginnings of when metal first started becoming extreme? You'd be going back at least fourty years, and hundreds of highly influential bands that have come and gone during that time frame.

Of which, Satanic Warmaster were one of them.

In the long run though, were they as influential as the early founders of the black metal genre, or even the first bands to ratchet up the volume and extremity clear back in the early 1980s?

Most people would say....no. I think, after reading through the responses and analyzing everything, I'd have to say that Venom would probably be the definitive answer.

If you go to what was the most influential BLACK metal band, or the most influential DEATH metal band, you would probably have a different answer; and my answer would still not include S.W. for black metal (Bathory would be it.)

That really made me laugh, just the way you phrased it. Very true too

Were they though? I mean, I don't know all that much about Satanic Warmaster, but their one album I used to have, 'Strength & Honour' was released in 2001 and, to my ears, sounded directly influenced by Mayhem's 'Deathcrush' EP, which was released in 1987. That's 14 years earlier! And isn't 'Deathcrush' itself influenced by early Sarcofago, Sodom, Bathory and, of course, Venom? I just don't hear anything "new" or that hadn't already been done (A LOT) by that point in the sound of Satanic Warmaster.

in·flu·en·tial: having great influence on someone or something.

in·flu·ence: the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself.

I think that the guy behind SW is a racist shitbag but yeah, they were really influential. Certainly not on the level of Venom or Bathory or Slayer or whatever, but they have a pretty distinctive melodic approach that along with some other Finnish contemporaries (Horna, which the same guy from SW did vocals for, Sargeist, Musta Surma, etc.) was pretty influential worldwide. You can hear it everywhere. That's like listening to Deicide and going hey, Slayer did this first, what the hell do you mean it's influential!

Sadistik Exekution had a role to play, though it might be in line with the "what does influential mean" post above. And probably not in the "most" as discussed here, but still interesting to note.

This post and its associated thesis are obviously complete hokum, but I do appreciate being alerted to the existence of Sarastus.

The Deceased Dwell in Darkness is a brilliant little EP.

The question here is "Who were the most influential extreme metal band?", that means, if there was only one band who influenced it all, or at least one who hugely helped develop that branch of metal music.
And we have people here naming bands that rehearse in a garage in their neighbourhood with two demos as a discography... And I mean, bands like Sadistik Exekution have an influential role in extreme metal. But the most influential...

Damn, who could forget that one!

Venom, Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, Bathory.

People say Slayer, and since I don't know much about them (never got into them), I cannot put 'em by myself - I'll take everyone elses word for it.

Suffocation has to be up there. Whether we like it or not, it influenced many slam/deathcore/metalcore/metallic hardcore/chuggy bands especially with that one song with the huge slammy breakdown every kid wanted his future band to sound like. Even Suicide Silence used to cite them as an influence.

Venom for their time and age were pretty extreme.
Slayer are second with their satanic thrash metal.
Morbid Angel easily takes the third medal.

One toxic word: Venom

Strange few have named Death

Totenwache also great!

CF was my first taste of extreme metal back in 86. after that the floodgates opened up to other bands. would read the back of the albums for other mentioned bands and record lables to open my horizons.

Bruce

Seeing how Venom influenced Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, Bathory, and Slayer, it's pretty clear what the correct answer is.

We settled this on page 1, close the thread.

I mean once again the op contributed nothing to the thread.

It should be done before some other one tell us Xasthur and Gutalax are the most influential extreme metal bands.

I have yet to hear anything quite like that album. Sewer poetry at its best.

Give a try to Shores of Ladon

Like many people already has told, it is Venom among the little bit later born Hellhammer. Angel Witch was quite influental too. Hellhammer took their sound from Angel Witch demo, "Extermination Day" anyone?

It's absolutely Venom, there's so many fucking bands named for/inspired by just Venom's song titles alone.

If we're talking about a direct influence, it's not going to be a remotely underground band. Who were the first extreme bands you heard and liked? Mine were Dimmu Borgir and In Flames. Not Venom and Suffocation, because if I'd heard those two right off the bat I'm not sure I would have wanted to dig deeper.

Calling Dimmu Borgir or In Flames extreme just makes me think of this image

Eh? People were calling Slayer extreme earlier.

Influential doesn't mean "influential for you" but for the whole branch and for the bands belonging to it. Venom "a remotely underground band"?? Are you new to metal?

Not new. I know about Venom. They were influential to many of the bands of the 90s we admire.

But metal's grown exponentially since then. How many of the thousands of extreme metal bands now active had Venom as a gateway band? More likely to be something slightly more embarrassing, don't you think?

Relative to what else was out there, Slayer circa 1982-1986 were infinitely more extreme than both In Flames and Dimmu at any time in each band's respective existence.

No, you don't know about Venom. I'm not a huge fan but they objectively are the forerunners of all extreme metal. They're not just influential to many bands of the 90's as you've said, but to all the extreme metal of the 80's and the 90's, and consequently for all extreme metal. "Gateway band for now active bands" is not the subject at all.