Dark Funeral are the band that means the most to me, full stop. The Stockholm second-wave black metal masters founded in 1993 by Lord Ahriman have spent over three decades carving out one of the most uncompromising and consistent careers in extreme heavy music. Seven full-length albums — from the foundational The Secrets of the Black Arts (1996) through to the magisterial We Are the Apocalypse (2022) — mark them as one of the founding pillars of Swedish black metal.
My commitment to this band is permanent. I have two inverted crosses tattooed on my left and right arms, with the inverted pentagrams from the Dark Funeral logo encapsulated within their inner circles. It is the most personal piece of metal iconography I carry, and it is dedicated to a band whose ferocity, atmosphere and refusal to compromise have informed my taste in heavy music more than any other. Lord Ahriman has guided this band through every lineup change, every legal battle, every era, with a vision that has never wavered. That is what real metal devotion looks like.