Review Summary: Black metal in it's purest form.
What can be said about Mayhem in 2025 that metal fans don’t already know? Lords of Chaos brought light to the band even to people who don’t have the slightest clue about Mayhem, black metal in general or the history of it all. People know about Dead’s suicide, the murder of Euronymous at the hands of bandmate (and Burzum creator) Varg Vikernes and all of the other tales. They’ve heard about Dead digging up dead and long decayed ravens to smell before shows so he could have “the stench of death” in his nostrils. The band is beyond polarizing and after over 40 years of existence, their debut album still stands tall over their discography…and black metal in general.
De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, released at the height of the Norwegian black metal scene in 1994, is the pinnacle of black metal itself. The mystique of having a victim and his murderer playing on the same album added to the lore of the album, but the music contained inside the chaos is just as mystifying as the story itself. Euronymous was a master riff writer. The first 2 tracks, Funeral Fog and Freezing Moon, are two of the band’s most popular tracks and for good reason. The dissonant flurry of icy riffs will blow you away like a blizzard in the Norwegian forests. Mayhem was making “dense” sounding black metal long before bands were making dissonance the cool thing to do. Euronymous had a technicality to his riffage that a lot of black metal bands didn’t have at the time. While other bands were concerned with mainly tremolo picking to invoke their atmosphere, Euronymous opted for a catchier style.
The atmosphere created by the riffs and production job is unmatched to this day. Tracks like From the Dark Past and Buried by Time and Dust are pummeling tracks carried by Hellhammer, the legendary drummer that has played in almost every band to come out of this scene. His blasts will give the listener head trauma from the sheer intensity. But let's all be honest, the cherry on top of this satanic sundae is the absolutely sinister and unique vocal performance from Atilla Csihar. Right from the very start when you hear “FUNERAALLLLL FAAAAWK” in the aforementioned Funeral Fog, you know you’re in for a wild one. His style relies less on the raspy, high pitched style normal for black metal vocalists, and more on a haunting combination of wails, growls and cries of a tortured soul.
The title track as the closer was a perfect choice. It is the perfect culmination of the previous 40 minutes. It starts with a barrage of melodic trems from Euronymous, Atilla’s deep ritualistic cries, technical fills from Hellhammer and an absolutely hypnotic bass job from Varg. After about 3 minutes things slow down and the atmosphere shrouds you in darkness as Hellhammer blasts your brains out and Atilla busts out some clean chanting that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
And honestly, that sums up the whole experience of
De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. This album is everything that the Norwegian black metal scene wanted to represent. It was, and is, pure darkness and hatred. There isn’t a single album that has been put out since that really encapsulates the essence of black metal as a whole. There will never be another
De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas....and this fan is more than okay with that.
