 Mayhem Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas is considered to be the disc that definined the Norwegian Black Metal scene. By the time the disc was released in 1994, the lyricist had commited suicide, the session bassist had murdered the guitarist, and anyone even remotely related to the band was being investigated for a string of church burnings. Soon, their session bassist Varg Vilkernes would be jailed for the murder and subsequently become a Nazi, while bloody photos of their vocalist's suicide, taken by guitarist Euronymous BEFORE calling the police, would be released and widely circulated by the band (on the cover of a live album, no less!). It was an interesting scene. Murder, suicide, and arson are probably reason enough to give this disc a listen, but it stands up suprisingly well on its own merit. It's really a compelling and often unintentionally comic disc. The "necro-riffing" of Euronymous is really a lot of silly, Satanic fun, while Hellhammer's scathingly fast drums are a beautifully grim wall of noise. These bizarre but technically poor performances are enhanced by the purposefully lo-fi production. If you happen to be on an 'L' train sitting next to Satan, this is probably what his headphone over-spill would sound like. The only real drawback of this great disc is session vocalist Attila's super-amaturish vocals. It's really a shame that the aptly named Dead, who wrote all of the lyrics for this disc, blew off his head with a shotgun shortly before it was recorded. Attila's vocals have been compared to a human vomitting, while Dead's vocal stylings supposedly sounded more akin to a dog vomitting. I think in the case of Black Metal, dog vomit is the vomit of choice. I bestow the rating of "5 crude photos of your lead singer's suicide."
Review by Dr. Martin Absinthe |
