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Presaged by the proto-black metal, Venom-influenced '80s thrash of Sweden's Bathory, Scandinavian metal became a dominant force in the heavy metal underground during the '90s, with a reputation for producing some of the most extreme death and black metal ever recorded. Although the scene was much more diverse than that, attention centered mainly on Norwegian black metal and Swedish death metal. Sometimes nicknamed Viking metal, the basic Norwegian sound was noisy, chaotic, and often augmented by sorrowful keyboard melodies. Swedish death metal bands, meanwhile, tended to favor thick, grinding, detuned riffs instead of a blur of white noise. In both cases, though, there was an audibly chilly bleakness permeating most of the music, which critics often likened to Scandinavian winters.
