Artist · in our writing

Emperor

Emperor formed in Norway in 1991 around Ihsahn and Samoth, then teenagers, and became one of the defining bands of the second wave of black metal. They added keyboards and symphonic grandeur to the genre's blizzard. They have split and reunited several times, and headline Beyond the Gates in 2026.

1Story

Sound & mood

Style: Symphonic black metal
Black metal
Mood: Majestic
Frozen
Ferocious

Blackness

94/100

Pitch black

Craziness

58/100

Restless

Editorial ratings, not measured data. Blackness is how dark, heavy and bleak the music feels; Craziness is how unhinged, chaotic and experimental it gets. Both are our critics’ call on a 0–100 scale. How we score them

In our articles

Editor's Whim · Mortiis · November 6, 2026 The Goblin Who Built His Own Dungeon Håvard Ellefsen, who would soon be known only as Mortiis (his own spelling of the Latin mortis, "of death", because one extra "i" is what separates a stage name from a Latin homework mistake), played bass in Emperor from about 1991 to 1992. Read → 12 mentions

Official links: Wikidata.