The Dawn of the Black Hearts


The Dawn of the Black Hearts 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 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. It has been called "arguably the most controversial album cover in extreme metal history."

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, shortly after his suicide on 8 April 1991. The photograph was taken by guitarist Euronymous, 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, 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. It has been claimed that this was Mauricio "Bull Metal" Montoya from the Colombian metal scene, who is further claimed to have been a pen-pal of Euronymous at the time. The latter is said to have given Bull Metal the photographs, which were used for the first printings of the bootleg in South America. All of these claims are unsubstantiated.
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 Colombia's Supremacía Satánica, D of Indonesia's, 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 :
Extra songs included on many reissues :

Personnel

Lineup on original release:
  • Dead – vocals
  • Euronymous – guitar
  • Necrobutcher – bass
  • Hellhammer – drums
Re-release bonus tracks lineup:
  • Messiah – vocals
  • Euronymous – guitar
  • Necrobutcher – bass
  • Manheim – drums