Band's List Black Metal Mayhem (NOR) De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas

What can be said that has not been said? An utterly monstrous beast of an album. Unsurpassed in its pure one-dimensional deployment of chilling aural devastation. The band was led by guitar player Euronymous, [Oystein Aarseth] who took his name [apparently] from an old Hellhammer, track ‘Eurynomous’ found on the 1983 Satanic Rites demo. The band name is taken from the Venom song "Mayhem with Mercy.
Guitarist, Oystein Aarseth can be cited as the godfather of Norwegian Black Metal, his very name evokes the acute reality of the scenes early ascension, and his band surmounts the impressive list of bands who make up the scene, as true cult legends. The very mention
of ‘Mayhem’ overshadows the very point of its existence, the music.
This statement rings true with every other Mayhem release, being that the music has never lived up to expectations and how could it? De Mysteris Dom Sathanas [translated as ‘Lord Cursed's Secret Rites], contains the very embodiment of Euronymous, at a time when a whole movement was about to erupt. You can smell the smouldering remains of wooden stave churches amongst the music’s claustrophobic atmosphere.
With original Vocalist ‘Dead’, having blown his head off, the vocal duties passed to Attilla Csihar [from Hungarian band Tormentor], and his hellish drones are forever immortalized within the blood letting magnitude of the album.
The cover is a silhouette of the Grand Cathedral, Nidaros-Domen, a place Varg Vikernes had hinted at blowing up.
The songs are peerless, dispelling all pretenders to a fiery end. Contrary to popular belief, Count Grishnackh does play bass on this album; his bass was not removed as is widely thought.
Snorre Ruch plays guitar on the entire "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" album, Ruch was never credited on the original version, but he is credited in the liner notes for "The Studio Experience" box as well as on Attila's "Beast Of" compilation. He also wrote a few riffs (intros to Cursed in Eternity and From The Dark Past, and possibly a few more shorter parts) and edited/partly re-wrote four of the lyrics, as they were in fragments after Dead's death. [Info courtesy of Dan Thorbjørnsen]
Some argue that without the controversy of events outside the music, this album would be taken as a basic/standard Black Metal workout, nothing special and doomed to obscurity. I would argue the opposite, as De Mysteriis, just batters the air and subsequently lays barren any preconceptions of ‘the sub-standard’ to dust.
It is far cry from the bands 1987 debut ‘Deathcrush’, a toneless adaptation of Venom and Hellhammer, and consisting of all the limitations of an inexperienced first release. By contrast the follow up to the virtually immaculate, De Mysteriis, was Wolfs Lair Abyss [1997] and A Grand Declaration of War [2000] were pale comparisons, lacking personality and depth, albeit strong quality Black Metal releases.
The release of the Ordo ad Chao album has reasserted the bands former greatness, having captured the very wrought staleness of De Mysteriis, and harnessing the bands most bleak sounding opus since that classic debut.

You know an album is a classic when it's the same age as you and still reminds you of being sixteen. Like 'Freezing Moon': surely most metalheads have tried to sing "by following... the freezing moooooon" with Atilla's (inhumanly) low pitch and invariably straining your young vocal cords.

Every element of the album works. First of all, the name 'De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas' is enough to make any religious parent blow the album inventor's brains out with a shotgun, make a stew out of his brain and make little necklaces out of his skull fragments. Secondly, the album art personifies black metal: mysterious, unfathomable and undeniably dark.

Musically, 'De Mysteriis...' sets a mark, a central mark in the Black Metal music scene which it shares with a select few albums like Burzum's 'Filosofem' and Darkthrone's 'Transilvanian Hunger'. Anything that moves further away from this central point becomes less and less pure in the black metal sense. Whether it's 'wrong' or 'a low-life thing to do' to move away from the aforementioned central point is subjective. The above three albums are the essence of black metal as it was originally intended.

The musicians that play on this album account for it's classic status: Hellhammer's talent at executing both catchy rhythms and Repulsion-style blasts, Euronymous's seminal guitar style, Varg's bulldozer bass, Atilla's bestial vocals and Dead's lyrics. Perhaps the most striking aspect here is the fact that Varg and Euronymous were playing side by side.

Even if 'De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas' were released today, it would still be a classic. No matter what anyone manages to dish up today, it will never surpass this album. This is one of the unspeakably few albums that ever get to be called True Black Metal.