TRIGGER WARNING! Some parts of the Mayhem story are just plain awful. So here’s your chance to opt out.
The story of the Norwegian black metal band Mayhem has been widely told, including being turned into a film called Lords of Chaos (starring Macaulay Culkin’s brother Rory, and Val Kilmer’s son Jack). The film was an adaptation of the 1998 book of the same name written by Didrik Søderlind and Michael J. Moynihan (for more on Moynihan and his links to some questionable subcultures, see this POST). That being said, you’d be forgiven if you’ve never heard of Mayhem, and I’ve met plenty of people who’ve never even heard of black metal as a genre.
Long story short, Mayhem were one of the earliest black metal bands. Founded in 1984, they rose to prominence in the tiny scene and put out their seminal debut album Deathcrush in 1987. In early 1991 their lead singer, who went by the name of Dead (real name Per Yngve “Pelle” Ohlin), killed himself with a shotgun at the house the band lived in. Instead of calling the police, his bandmate and Mayhem founding member Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth) went to a shop, bought a disposable camera, and took pictures of his friend’s body (this will become important again shortly). Shortly thereafter Euronymous opened a record store in Oslo called Helvete, which became a central hub for the black metal community. Meanwhile, a series of church burnings were happening in Norway, and a new member of Mayhem named Varg Vikernes was one of those involved and later convicted of some of these arsons. Oh, but that wasn’t before Varg murdered his bandmate Euronymous in 1993, stabbing him 23 times. Varg spent time in prison for his crimes and while incarcerated started a new musical project called Burzum and became sort of the poster child of the conversation around if it’s OK to enjoy the music of an absolutely horrible person, because in addition to being a murderer and church arsonist, Vikernes also an avowed racist (even mentioning his name in a Facebook post will result in the post coming down and the user risking a temporary ban).
Which brings us to Dawn Of The Black Hearts, a live recording of a show played in Sarpsborg, Norway in February 1990 that features Dead on vocals and Euronymous on guitar. Originally released in 1995 it is notorious for its choice of image for the album cover – one of the photos Euronymous took of Dead’s body. Normally I post images of album covers on these posts, but I’m opting not to in this case for obvious reasons. The image is, quite frankly, horrifying. If you want to see it, just do a search for the album name. Instead, below are a few photos I took of Helvete’s infamous “Black Metal Basement” when we visited Norway in 2014.
Dawn Of The Black Hearts has seen dozens of releases on vinyl, cassette, and CD, including a few versions that have an alternate, innocuous cover with a different title (Live In Sarpsborg). The recording is generally held to be of poor quality, but to my ears it’s not bad for what it is, which is an audience recording of a metal show at a small venue. Maybe it’s because I went into it with low expectations, but I’m OK with the sound. It does lack low end and the drumming gets buried behind the guitars, but all in all it has a very raw energy and is an important artifact of the scene. It’s not a bad listen at all.
My version appears to have been put out by a Canadian label called Die Hard in 2023, but it’s impossible to be sure in such a widely bootlegged record. I mention the pressing only because there are close to a hundred different versions of this release listed on Discogs, and I suspect the sound quality varies quite a bit. For whatever reason I ran across copies of this in at least three different stores on our recent trip to Portland, Oregon, so I’m wondering if there wasn’t a recent repressing and a new offering from a distributor. While the original pressing, put out by the Columbian label Warmaster Records, can fetch over $1,000 per copy, this one could be had for $25-35. Is it worth it? If you have an interest in black metal or extreme metal in general, than it probably is, though you can also find it on Spotify under the Live In Sarpsborg title if you just want to give it a listen.