They are just a heavy metal band. If they were American we'd call them USPM.

me, i just call them mercyful fate

>>127264407 (OP)
cause he wore the goofy makeup and sung about muh satan. stranger even to me is how andy larocque played the beyond the gates festival in 2017.

They are labeled as belonging to the first wave of black metal, it is a retroactive term used to refer to bands that influenced the "second wave" black metal bands. None of the bands belonging to the first wave really have anything in common with what black metal would become, except maybe bathory, they were just thrash bands, Mercyful Fate gets lumped in because they were overtly satanic and King wore makeup that somewhat resembles corpse paint. I always felt the classification was kinda dumb, especially when people try to use it as a genre descriptor rather than just a shorthand phrase to describe certain influential bands.

>>127264407 (OP)
who does?

>>127264407 (OP)
Because Satan and stuff. Obviously melodically they are hardly different from Sabbath or Judas Priest or the like

>>127264407 (OP)
no one does, people call Bathory "first wave" black metal as if it doesn't just sound like thrash drenched in reverb

>>127264579
>sung about muh satan
his grandma was satan?

>>127266093
erm ackshully that was King Diamond™ not Mercyful Fate

i'm a hard lovin' ma-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH