Corpse Paint

Corpse paint is a style of black and white paint/makeup that is used mainly on Black Metal band members during their concerts, photo shoots etc.

For example:

Nergal of Behemoth:

 Abbath of Immortal:

Infernus of Gorgoroth:

The entire face and neck is painted white, with usually the lips and eyes painted black. However, most Black Metal musicians prefer to have a "unique" style of corpse paint.

Take Shagrath of Dimmu Borgir for example, who likes to have smudged lines on his cheeks:

Some Black Metal musicians have fake, or even sometimes real, blood combined with their corpse paint.

Gaahl of Gorgoroth:

It is very seldom that other colours for corpse paint are used.

Corpse paint was started by early rock groups such as KISS, Alice Cooper etc. in the 1970s. By the 1980s, Hellhammer, Venom and a couple of others were the first Extreme Metal bands to wear corpse paint.
The first Norwegian Black Metal band to wear corpse paint was Mayhem, the lead vocalist Dead(R.I.P) to be more specific. More Black Metal bands followed.

Burzum, Emperor and Satyricon stopped wearing corpse paint because they felt it had lost it's meaning and became trendy.


Funny enough, corpse paint is even worn by some famous wrestlers. Dafuq.


Well, I don't really like Immortal, but here's Abbath being awesome.