Vim Fuego A live Mayhem show is a rare and much vaunted occasion. The band’s body count, and the collective prison time served by various members has meant finding enough musicians for a show has not always been a straightforward exercise.

Even the most casual of black metal fans knows the basics of the Mayhem story. A group of Norwegian teens got together in the mid-80s, and from a series of events involving unhinged band members, murders, church burnings, master-tape tampering, and extreme theological and political views, black metal was born. Oh yeah, and there was a bit of music thrown in there too.

“De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas” was a revelation on its initial release in 1994, the album black metal fans had been yearning for since “Deathcrush”. Put simply, it was fast, raw black metal from beyond the grave. Even though it had been preceded by a few high quality albums, from the likes of Darkthrone and Immortal, “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas” redefined what black metal actually was.

When the Gods (from the Norse pantheon, of course) smile upon Mayhem, and the required number of living and un-incarcerated band members can be assembled, the results can be magnificent, as the band’s explosive “Live in Leipzig” album proved. So, can lightning strike twice?

“No” would be too simplistic an answer. “Not really” would be too vague. “Yes” would be wrong. “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas Alive” is just a bit tough to judge.

Look at the title. Deliberate or not, sticking “…Alive” at the end of the album title invites instant comparison to the four, or perhaps five (it depends if you count the “Alive! The Millennium Concert” album or not) “Kiss Alive” albums. Many Kiss fans will tell you those albums are where the band shines brightest. Mayhem definitely shines live, but there is just something a bit flat about this entire performance.

It was recorded in Norrköping, Sweden, in December 2015, and is the entire “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas” album performed live, played in order, and seemingly without breaks, just like a studio album. Therein lies a weakness to the trend of bands playing entire albums live. The strike rate of great songs to duds meant Kiss had to be picky as to which songs they put in a live show, but even bands with a lower dud rate like Metallica still have the odd turd in the swimming pool, like “Escape”, James Hetfield’s least favourite song, which he was still forced to learn and play for their performances of the “Ride The Lightning” album. While there is nothing like “Hooligan”, “Baby Driver” or “2000 Man” anywhere in Mayhem’s back catalogue, the four tracks from “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas” which appeared on “Live In Leipzig” just seems stronger in this situation too.

Vocalist Attila Csihar is not famous for between song banter, but surely there must have been some breaks between songs. Remember moments like Iron Maiden’s “Live After Death”, with Bruce Dickinson’s “And this is what not to do if a bird shits on you” or Lemmy’s introduction to “We Are The Roadcrew” on “No Sleep ‘til Hammersmith”. Wit is not essential, but it would be nice to know there was actually a band playing live to an audience.

And that is possibly the biggest problem. This all sounds too polished, especially for such an incendiary black metal band, and may as well have been a re-recording of the entire album in the studio. There is no life, nor any chilled necrotic death to this album at all. Mayhem may perhaps be too good for their own good. While near faultlessly performed, it has no character or vitality, and is just not an essential release from one of black metal’s most essential bands.

Uruk_Hai Review #1

I avoided Metal music for many years because I always thought it was just weird vocal noises, unstoppable drums and weird distorted guitar riffs, I didn't know what the different types of Metal are and the only metal artists that I used to listen to (very scarcely) were the ones that were someway related to Progressive Rock (Tool, Dream Theater, Opeth, Devin Townsend and Agalloch to name a few).

Sometimes I get tired of Progressive Rock and that's where I start to discover different kinds of Bands and musical genres, so, about a year ago I discovered a Black Metal playlist on Spotify and I listened to it merely for curiosity, now I regret for all the time I wasted: I found out a lot of excellent Black Metal recordings from the 90's but it was particularly "De Mysteriis dom Sathanas" by Mayhem the one that really captured my attention. Further than the whole suicide, murdering and burning churches crap that the members of this chaotic band were involved in, the music on this album was something absolutely different to anything that I've ever heard.

I've been listening to several (well, maybe not several but various) Black Metal bands lately and it's easy to know what the music is about: weird vocal noises, unstoppable drums and weird distorted guitar riffs, the exact same stuff that I always avoided Metal Music for is what made me get really interested in it, but after getting some info about Mayhem I can get that this was (and still is) one of the most iconic and representative bands of the whole Norwegian Black Metal scene and they were actually pioneers on the style: even when their album was released until 1994 when both Dead and Euronymous were already death, the band was extremely popular in the underwolrd of Norway since the late eighties.

Even when Mayhem is not the only Black Metal band and it is probably not the best one, the most prolific or the most popular one, its relevance and influence in the development of this particular musical style is undeniable. As I said before: this album was released after Dead and Euronymous deaths so this is not only a debut album: it is a very important historical archive that should be recognized as one of those pillar albums in the creation of a whole new style of music.

I hope to keep discovering more and more albums like this in the journey that I'm starting through the universe of Black Metal, from now on, I have a lot of research to do, but I couldn't choose a better record to start.

Warthur Daemon feels like something of a back to basics album for Mayhem - rather than trying the sort of production experiments or thematic weirdness which characterised albums like Grand Declaration of War, Ordo ad Chao, and Esoteric Warfare, they produce some straight-ahead no-nonsense black metal. You could sort of see this as the third of a triptych of Mayhem's "pure" black metal studio albums, along with De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and Chimera.

Of those three, I don't think it quite reaches the consistently high polish of Chimera, and it certainly isn't as groundbreaking as De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, but it's a fun outing which proves that Mayhem are still no slouches, even if they risk going through the motions at this point.

Kev Rowland There are few metal bands which force me to jump my self-imposed lead time when I am sent a new album and push it to the top of the queue, but I was there when Mayhem played New Zealand the first time in their history, and they ripped the country a new one. It is more than five years since their last studio album, ‘Esoteric Warfare’, and it is indeed strange to think that this is only their sixth album. But given their debut ‘De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas’ is one of the most important black metal albums of all time they always have a lot to live up to. The line-up these days is Necrobutcher (bass), Hellhammer (drums), Attila (vocals), Teloch (guitars) and Ghul (guitars), and while only Hellhammer was the only full member at the time of the debut, both Necrobutcher and Attila were involved and all five of these guys were on the last album together so they have been touring and playing for quite some time.

It shows on this, as this is unrepentant black metal with no frills, atmospheric weirdness or ambient trickery. Here are five guys intent on painting the walls with your blood and offering a sacrifice to Satan. This album reeks of evil, it is full of minor chords and dischords, deliberately unsettling and pushing the genre to show who the real masters are these days. When Mayhem are in this sort of mood there really is no-one who can live with them. They have always been challenging what is acceptable since the days of Dead and Euronymous, while the actions of Varg Vikernes also did much to put an air of mystery around the band (I highly recommend ‘Lords of Chaos’ as the definitive account of those days of the early BM scene, the stave church burnings and murders). Musically Necrobutcher, Hellhammer and Attila have refused to rest on their reputation and have continued to push themselves and their music, and ‘Daemon’ is yet another example of that. While it isn’t a follow-up to the last album, neither is it a sequel to that debut, which must have been a danger/option given they have been playing all of it live in concert over the last few years. It is Mayhem doing what they have always done, gone into a studio and coming out with gentle melodious ditties. Or not.

Mayhem are back guys and girls, with walls of sounds, riffing guitars, a rhythm section underpinning everything, and a pervasive nastiness which infects everything it touches. I love it.

Kev Rowland

There is no doubt that ‘De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas’ is one of the most important black metal albums ever released, and was awarded the #40 spot on Rolling Stone Magazine’s 100 Greatest Metal Albums Of All Time, where it stated “…Mysteriis… remains a singularly potent document, its expressions of alienation and nihilism lent an icy severity by Aarseth’s lacerating guitar buzz, session vocalist Attila Csihar’s arcane croak and presentation of Dead’s lyrical gothic terror and the pummelling drums of Hellhammer (Jan Axel Blomberg).”

Captured in Norrköping, Sweden in 2015 during the band’s headlining set at the Black Christmass Festival, the show marked Mayhem’s first time ever playing ‘De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas’ in full, and luckily even if we weren’t there we can now share the experience. It was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Tore Stjerna and NBS Audio and produced by vocalist Attila Csihar and guitarist Teloch. I was lucky enough to catch Mayhem at their first ever NZ gig a few years ago, and Attila has lost none of his power to shock and control an audience, and that is very much in evidence here. The album has not been over-produced, so it is still full of the raw and bleak sound that has made them so many fans. Available in digital and streaming formats as well as vinyl, this is a truly essential release for any fans of the genre.