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The Dawn of the Black Hearts (subtitled Live in Sarpsborg, Norway 28/2, 1990) is a bootleg live album by the Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. The title originates from a line of lyrics Fenriz of Darkthrone wrote for the band.

Despite being a bootleg, the album is sometimes erroneously listed as one of the band's most important albums, mainly due to the notoriety regarding the cover art, which is an image of the late Mayhem vocalist Per "Dead" Ohlin shortly after he committed suicide.

Background

The bootleg is a recording of a live show that took place on 28 February 1990 in Sarpsborg, Norway. Metalion, an early figure in the scene who helped to organise this show, claimed that there were around 300 people in attendance and the members of Darkthrone and Immortal were present as well.

Cover

The album is infamous and controversial for bearing a photograph of vocalist Dead (Per Yngve Ohlin), shortly after his suicide on 8 April 1991. The photograph was taken by guitarist Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth), shortly after he entered the house the band shared and discovered the body.

Bull Metal, a penpal of Euronymous and owner of Warmaster Records, was sent a copy of one of the photos Euronymous had taken of Dead's corpse which ended up becoming the cover image. Euronymous had taken additional pictures of Dead's body in different positions (one of them with Dead "sitting half up, with the shotgun on his knee"), but these photos were found and destroyed by Euronymous's father after he was murdered in 1993, which was two years before The Dawn of the Black Hearts was released.

Release

According to Metalion, the bootleg was made and released by an individual from South America. This individual has been identified as Mauricio “Bull Metal” Montoya from the Colombian metal scene, who was apparently a pen-pal of Euronymous. The latter is said to have given Bull Metal the photographs, which were used for the first printings of the bootleg in South America. However, some of these details are considered more mythical than substantiated.

Metal music historian Dayal Patterson has referred to the record as "perhaps the most bootlegged black metal release of all time." The bootleg was the gateway to discovering Dead-era Mayhem for a number of later black metal musicians, such as Black Emperor of Spain's Supremacía Satánica, D of Indonesia's Warkvlt [id], and Semjaza of Greece's Thy Darkened Shade.

The Dawn of the Black Hearts was officially reissued in 2017 on vinyl under the name Live in Sarpsborg, using a photo of Necrobutcher as a new cover. This 2017 release uses improved audio from a separate master source recording of the concert.

Track listing

The original track listing (recorded in 1990 with Dead as vocalist and Hellhammer as drummer):

Extra songs included on many reissues (recorded in 1985 with Messiah as vocalist and Manheim as drummer):

• Some of the reissues with bonus songs combine "Danse Macabre" and "Black Metal" in one track.
• Certain versions containing the bonus song mistitle "Danse Macabre" as "Dance Macabre".

Personnel

Lineup on original release:

• Dead (Per Yngve Ohlin) – vocals
• Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth) – guitar
• Necrobutcher (Jørn Stubberud) – bass
• Hellhammer (Jan Axel Blomberg) – drums

Re-release bonus tracks lineup:

• Messiah (Eirik Nordheim) – vocals
• Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth) – guitar
• Necrobutcher (Jørn Stubberud) – bass
• Manheim (Kjetil Manheim) – drums

See also

• Mayhem discography

References

Notes

1. The original pressing has "The" at the beginning of the title. Some later editions omit it.
2. The lyrics sheet can be found in the 2009 limited edition EP, Life Eternal.

Citations

1. Bowar, Chad. "Mayhem". About.com. Archived from the original on 4 July 2008. Retrieved 15 July 2008.
2. ^ "Mayhem". MusicMight. Archived from the original on 14 February 2009. Retrieved 15 July 2008.
3. "Mayhem Main Albums". Allmusic. Retrieved 15 July 2008.
4. ^ Moynihan, Michael; Soderlind, Didrik (1 November 2003). Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground New Edition. Feral House. p. 57. ISBN 978-1-932595-52-9.
5. Kahn-Harris, Keith (2007). Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge. Oxford: Berg Publishers. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-84520-399-3.
   Michael Moynihan, Didrik Søderlind: Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground. First Edition. Venice, CA: Feral House 1998, pp. 59f.
6. Lords of Chaos, p. 49
7. "AN NCS INTERVIEW: GUERRA TOTAL (GERSON TORO)". No Clean Singing. 3 October 2017.
8. "MΑΥΗΕΜ: Dawn of the Black Hearts, Vinyl LP – 1995". Vinylom. 28 March 2019.
9. Patterson, Dayal (25 November 2013). Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult. Feral House. p. 148. ISBN 978-1-936239-76-4.
10. Lahtinen, Luxi (8 April 2021). "The Metal Crypt presents... Per Yngve Ohlin aka "Dead"". The Metal Crypt.
11. "Live in Sarpsborg". burningshed.com. Archived from the original on 23 November 2018. Retrieved 23 November 2018.

External links

• The Dawn of the Black Hearts on discogs.com
• The Dawn of the Black Hearts on the official Mayhem website

• Mayhem (band) albums
• Bootleg recordings
• 1995 live albums
• Obscenity controversies in music