Black metal’s more extreme second wave was largely dominated by Norwegians, but Dark Funeral quickly established themselves at the head of the Swedish vanguard. With guitarists Mikael “Lord Ahriman” Svanberg and David “Blackmoon” Parland at the helm, the band’s fast-and-furious 1996 full-length debut LP, The Secrets of the Black Arts, is a record steeped in Satanism. Over the next two decades, the devil, hell, and Armageddon remained remarkably consistent themes, as the band’s unholy offerings shifted from ferocious to implacable. Their diabolical determination is most evident in the tremolo blitzkrieg of “The Arrival of Satan’s Empire” (2001), the unmitigated fury of “King Antichrist” (2005), and the merciless stomp of “Unchain My Soul” (2016).