Mayhem "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas"

De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas is the first studio album by the Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. Songwriting began in 1987, but due to the suicide of vocalist Per "Dead" Ohlin and the murder of guitarist Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth, the album's release was delayed until May 1994. De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas is widely considered one of the most influential black metal albums of all time. It is the band's only studio album to feature Aarseth and Varg "Count Grishnackh" Vikernes.

Mayhem began writing songs for the album in late 1987 or early 1988, depending on the source. Vocalist Dead started to write the lyrics when he joined the band in 1988. In 1990 studio versions of the songs "The Freezing Moon" and "Carnage" were recorded, appearing on the CBR Records compilation album Projections of a Stained Mind. Mayhem's drummer, Jan Axel "Hellhammer" Blomberg, claimed that the lyrics of "Freezing Moon" were "meant to make people commit suicide". Dead said in a 1989 interview by Marduk guitarist Morgan "Evil" Håkansson, published in Slayer fanzine, that by then he had written the lyrics for "Funeral Fog", "Freezing Moon", "Buried by Time and Dust" and "Pagan Fears". Finished versions of these songs appeared on the album Live in Leipzig, a concert recording from November 1990 which was released in 1993.

By 1991, Dead and Euronymous were living in a house in the woods near Kråkstad, which was used by the band to rehearse. On 8 April 1991, while alone in the house, Dead slit his wrists and throat and then shot himself in the forehead with a shotgun. He left a brief suicide note, which apologized for having used the gun indoors and began with "Excuse the blood". His body was found by Euronymous. Before calling the police, he allegedly went to a nearby shop and bought a disposable camera with which he photographed the body, after re-arranging some items. One of these photographs was later used as the cover of a bootleg live album titled The Dawn of the Black Hearts.

To record the new album, Euronymous recruited Attila Csihar (from the Hungarian band Tormentor) as vocalist and Vikernes (who performed solo as Burzum) as bassist. This lineup – Euronymous, Hellhammer, Csihar and Vikernes – recorded the album during late 1992 and early 1993 at the Grieg Hall in Bergen. According to Attila Csihar, the whole album was recorded in three days. The album itself contained no information on lineup and credits. Necrobutcher, who had left the band before the recording sessions, claimed to have written half of the songs for the album. He stated that he and Dead wrote "Freezing Moon" and Euronymous only contributed one riff to that song. Snorre "Blackthorn" Ruch (who performed solo as Thorns) wrote some of the riffs for the album and finished some of Dead's song lyrics, according to himself and Hellhammer. The main riff of the Thorns song "Into the Promised Land" (also called "Lovely Children") became the main riff of "From the Dark Past". According to Vikernes, Euronymous was responsible for most of the guitar riffs, but he claimed that Hellhammer, Necrobutcher and himself contributed some riffs, too.

On 10 August 1993, Vikernes and Blackthorn traveled to Euronymous's apartment in Oslo, where Vikernes stabbed Euronymous to death. He was arrested and sentenced to 21 years in prison, while Blackthorn was sentenced to 8 years for being an accomplice.

During Vikernes's trial, police said that they had found explosives and ammunition in Vikernes's home. Euronymous and Vikernes had allegedly plotted to blow up Nidaros Cathedral, which appears on the album cover, to coincide with the album's release. Vikernes denied this allegation in a 2009 interview, saying, "I was getting [the explosives and ammunition] in order to defend Norway if we were attacked any time. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union could have decided to attack us."

After Euronymous's funeral, Hellhammer and Necrobutcher worked on releasing the album. Euronymous's parents asked Hellhammer to remove the bass tracks recorded by Vikernes. Hellhammer refused, saying, "I thought it was appropriate that the murderer and victim were on the same record. I put word out that I was re-recording the bass parts, but I never did".

The album was eventually released in May 1994, around the time that Vikernes was sentenced. It featured the last lyrics written by Dead before his suicide, and the last songs recorded by Euronymous before his murder.

In 2009, Mayhem released rough mixes of five songs from the De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas recording session as the EP Life Eternal.

The title De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas is a Latin phrase meaning "(About) The Mysteries of the Lord Satan", with "Dom" being an abbreviation of "Domini", often used as an honorific prefix for ecclesiastics of the Catholic Church. The album cover is a monochrome photo of the east side of Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Mayhem.

1. "Funeral Fog" 5:47
2. "Freezing Moon" 6:23
3. "Cursed in Eternity" 5:10
4. "Pagan Fears" 6:20
5. "Life Eternal" 6:57
6. "From the Dark Past" 5:26
7. "Buried by Time and Dust" 3:34
8. "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" 6:21

Total length: 45:58

Produced together with Voices of Wonder.

The original Deathlike Silence pressing lacks a barcode and lyrics, its 4-panel booklet simply just contains a fold-out cover with pictures of Hellhammer and Euronymous, credits, copyright and contact info.

Front cover is a drawing of a monochrome photo taken from east side of Nidaros cathedral located in Trondheim, Norway. Colouring of the building on the front cover is blue (according to the book in the 25-year 5-LP box, the 2nd press CD had lyrics but the cover artist got no credits. Starting from the 3rd CD-press onward, the name of the cover artist for lyrics pages only - Jørgen Lid Widing - is written in the booklet in a completely different font - courtesy by Voices of Wonder).

All the CD's contain on the back cover: "A Tribute to Euronymous 15/04/1968 - 10/08/1993" with a promo photo of only Euronymous and Hellhammer. Attila Csihar, Varg Vikernes and Snorre W. Ruch's contributions are not mentioned anywhere. The CD itself features a very dark photo showing the faces of Euronymous and Hellhammer, and a third face which is believed to be Attila (although this has never been confirmed by the band).

Euronymous' murder by Vikernes (who plays bass on the album) occurred right before the initial release of the album. Accordingly, the family of Euronymous requested Hellhammer to remove all of Vikernes' bass tracks. Hellhammer promised that he would replace bass lines with his own, but he didn't know how to play bass, so the album was left with Vikernes' bass lines intact, albeit lowered significantly in the mix compared to the other instruments.

Contrary to popular belief, Snorre did not record guitars on this album, although he and Euronymous often exchanged musical ideas and so Euronymous included several riffs written by him on the record.

The lyrics of "Life Eternal" were originally written by Dead as a gift to Bull Metal, who played in Typhon, Masacre and Neurosis; but nevertheless those lyrics were used in De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas by the band. Also as a posthumous tribute to Dead and Euronymous, Bull Metal used the same lyrics for "Life Eternal" in their 1996 Typhon album Unholy Trilogy, although with different music.

A bootlegged rehearsal of this album called From the Darkest Past was distributed sometime in the early 90's, featuring instrumental tracks recorded on May 16th 1992.

Recording information:

Recorded at The Grieg Memorial Hall (Norwegian: Grieghallen) Studios (Bergen, Norway) between 1992 and 1993.