Blackened death metal (also called "the black death" – "death/black metal" or "black/death metal", depending on which style is dominant) is a fusion genre of extreme metal utilising elements of death metal and black metal; bands often hail from Europe. Many of the bands start out as full on black metal outfits and end up adopting death metal influences and fusing the two together, or becoming modern death metal artists. In the 1980s, bands like Hellhammer and Celtic Frost straddled the often still-vague genres of thrash metal, death metal and black metal, and it wasn't until albums such as Behemoth's Satanica that the current form of "blackened death metal" truly took form. Some melodic black metal bands have a style similar to blackened death metal because it owes much to death metal, mor