De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (Mayhem)

***De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas*** is the first studio album by Mayhem. Songwriting began in 1987, but due to the suicide of vocalist Per "Dead" Ohlin and the murder of guitarist Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth, the album's release was delayed until May 1994. *De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas* is widely considered one of the most influential black metal albums of all time.

First Deathlike Silence CD pressing with no barcode. Booklet has no lyrics, just a fold-out cover with pictures of Hellhammer and Euronymous inside. Colouring of the building on the front is blue.

A bootlegged rehearsal of this album called *From the Darkest Past* was distributed sometime in the early 90s, featuring instrumental tracks recorded on May 16th 1992.

## Background

***De Mysteriis Dom. Sathanas*** means "Lord Satan's Secret Rites", or at least that's what Euronymous wanted to write. In fact, the phrase isn't written in correct Latin. However, the little dot after "dom", as seen on the original cover, abbreviates "domini", so the title means something like "about/of Lord Satan's mysteries".
"Mysterii" is not only translatable as mystery, but also as secret worship/ritual/rite. So, when pluralized as it is in the title, "Mysteriis" can indeed translate to Secret Rites, also with the word "Sathanas", is not the correct word for Satan in Latin; the correct word would be "Satanas" (without the 'h') or "diabolus".

The murder of Euronymous by Varg Vikernes happened right before the initial release of the CD. Accordingly, the family of Euronymous asked Hellhammer to remove all bass lines from the album, because Varg's contribution didn't deserve to be on it, in their opinion. Hellhammer promised that he would replace bass lines with his own, but he didn't know how to play bass, so the album was left with Varg's bass lines, although not heard as well as the other instruments because of it being lowered. All the CD's contain on the back *A Tribute to Euronymous* with a promo photo of only Euronymous and Hellhammer. Attila, Varg and Snorre W. Ruch's contributions are not mentioned anywhere. The CD itself features a very dark photo showing the faces of Euronymous and Hellhammer, and a third face which is believed to be Attila (although this has never been confirmed by the band).

The lyrics of "Life Eternal" were originally written by Dead as a gift to Bull Metal, who played in Masacre and Typhon. Later on, the lyrics were used in *De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas*. As a posthumous tribute to Dead and Euronymous, Typhon used the lyrics for "Life Eternal" in their album *Unholy Trilogy*.

## Tracklist

1. "Funeral Fog" - 5:47
2. "Freezing Moon" - 6:23
3. "Cursed in Eternity" - 5:10
4. "Pagan Fears" - 6:21
5. "Life Eternal" - 6:57
6. "From the Dark Past" - 5:27
7. "Buried by Time and Dust" - 3:34
8. "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" - 6:22

## Lineup

Band members
* Euronymous - guitars
* Hellhammer - drums

Guest/Session
* Attila Csihar - vocals
* Count Grishnackh - bass
* Blackthorn - guitars

Other staff
* Jørgen Lid Widing - artwork (booklet)
* Pytten - producer, mixing
* Euronymous - producer, mixing
* Hellhammer - producer, mixing
* Dead - lyrics
* Necrobutcher - lyrics (track 3)
* Blackthorn - lyrics (editing)

## Trivia

* Front cover is a drawing of the Nidaros cathedral located in Trondheim, Norway.