Cult Norwegian black metal band Mayhem performed their thrilling debut De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, Moscow

In June 2017 a cult Norwegian black metal band Mayhem performed their thrilling debut De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas in Moscow as a part of same titled world tour.

This record made a genre once in 1994. Young Scandinavians were literally obsessed by death while doing their extreme musical act. At a concert in Leipzig in the early 90’s the audience was thrown rotting meat, and the vocalist tortured his body to blood surrounded by pig heads planted on stakes. Reducing themselves to corpses in live performances and photographs of that time, they were shortening the distance between their everyday life and the sacral.

Three decades later we can see an extremely energetic music performance of the highest rank, but now the destruction is excluded. Their freezing sound and style are perfectly delivered through the machine-gun blast beasts and bursting guitars. Changing suits, candles and skulls placed, the abundance of smoke and light effects — these all are attendants of their story retelling. Necrobutcher, Hellhammer and Atilla Csihar — their faces are now depicted on a huge contrasting black and white stretch above the stage.

The years have increased the distance not only between two records and two performances, but also between the band and their subject matter. Today, this live performance of Mayhem is a considered simulation of the member’s past experience. Stretching this album out of the context 20 years later could be treated as an artists’ new part of conversation in reconsidering its past.

Photo Ivan Shpak and Timur Arshba and Text Timur Arshba

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