Emerging from the Norwegian underground in 1991, Emperor's blisteringly fast beats, howling vocals and fearsome wall-of-noise guitars helped set the brutal template for classic Scandinavian black metal, but this infamous outfit also upped the ante on ambition for the entire scene on epochal albums like 1997's Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk. Blending gothic keyboard melodies and sinister waves of synth into their epics, Emperor brought a new level of orchestral complexity to ferocious black metal and their prog-inspired experimentation took the genre far beyond its lo-fi roots.