Mayhem's Of Lord Satans Mysteries is a bootleg CD of a rehearsal from the Spring of 1989. I picked up the CD from the website Hell's Headbangers, a record mail order distributor, as well as a record company. I've had the album for about a year now, but never thought about reviewing it, mostly due to the other site I review for doesn't allow bootleg reviews (except one). So I though that for my first full album review here, it would be a perfect choice.
The album features the influental lineup of Necrobutcher, Hellhamer, Euronymous, and of course Per "Dead"Yngve Ohlin (then again it's form 1989. Who else would you expect?). Later on in the review, I'll get to talking about the individual sounds of each instrument. One of the things that I'd like to talk about first, is the art work of the album.
The album's front and back cover, as well as the artwork for the booklet are all drawings by Pelle himself. According to HH's description of the album, Pelle sent these out to fellow musicians, along with hand written notes (one of which appears in the booklet). It doesn't state that the artwork is included, but I doubt it was. As the the picture on the CD tray is of the I <3 Transylvania picture that's been seen in other things (it first appeared to the public in Slayer Magazine I do believe). Not many people might care about it, but I thought it was a cool thing to mention.
The track list of the album is the standard for this lineup of Mayhem. The track listing is as follows
1. Buried by Time and Dust
2. Deathcrush
3. Chainsaw Gutsfuck
4. Necrolust
5. Pure Fucking Armageddon
6. Funeral Fog
7. The Freezing Moon (it's credited as The Dark and The Freezing Moon)
The sound of the album overall is fairly decent for a rehearsal tape from the late 1980's. You can for the most part clearly hear the guitars, drums, and of course the vocal. As with most Mayhem and Black Metal recordings, the bass can be heard, but not a whole lot. But overall, the entire sound and quality of the recording is pretty good. I'd give the sound quality a B -.
Now on to the individual sounds.
Let's start with the drums. Hellhammer is his good old loud thundering self. As I said, you can clearly hear him, and this is a good thing. At times, his playing can be a little loud here, but not that much. It mostly depends on the volume you have on whatever you're listening to it on. The drum work itself is as usual very good. Hammer is considered one of the best black metal drummers for a reason after all. The drumming however doesn't really affect the sound of certain songs to me. It's normal to on rehearsal tapes to hear an instrument change how the sound itself sounds, but I find that the drumming doesn't here. Overall, the drumming is great as always.
Moving on to the bass now. Necro, is Necro. You can't really hear him unless the bass opens the song up, you listen really closely, or you play with the treble and woofer volume (I don't mess with it though unless I wanna play about with the sound). When you can hear him though, it's the same old great stuff. Not much to really say on on the bass, so yeah.
Now we get to one of the two main stars of the recording. Euronymous is just a fucking beast on the album. You can clearly hear the guitar very well, and it sounds pretty damn good for a bootleg rehearsal. As always, you can feel chills down you back on songs like The Freezing Moon and Buried by Time and Dust. The rifts on the songs from Deathcrush (tracks 2 through 5) are as good as always. I especially love how Necrolust's opening sounds on this recording. It's always been one of my favorite rifts, and it's really tight here (although how it sounds on Live in Leipzig is my favorite). Oystein, I miss you man, and this recording is another testament (in my opinion) to why he is the guitar king of Norwegian Black Metal, and Black Metal all around.
And finally we come to Pelle. Dead, is Dead. The quality of the vocals on the recording are fairly decent. They wain in some spots (one near the end of Freezing Moon), but other then that it's fine. His shrieks are as chilling as ever, and paints a nice atmosphere. That's one of the things that I've always loved about his voice. When he's singing the songs he wrote (whether it be for Morbid or Mayhem), it paints a very dark picture. The artwork that he's done (not just the ones in the booklet) really show this off. My personal favorite track that he does here is Funeral Fog. I love how it sounds in the chorus, specifically the way it kind of drones a little bit. I really don't know what else to say about Pelle besides that I wish he was still around. It was really tragic that he killed himself because of his depression. All in all, he killed it in my opinion on the recording. A.
In conclusion, Of Lord Satans Mysteries is a very nice recording. It has a few cons, most of which are due to the sound of some songs waining, and the fact that while the sound quality is pretty good, it does fail at some times. In fact, the sound completely stops at one point during Funeral Fog. But overall, it's a really good recording. It goes for ten dollars on Hell's Headbangers, and I highly suggest you pick it up. It's a quick pick up if you want to own a recording of Dead. Is it the best, nope. But it isn't the worse.
A -
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