1) Mayhem is a Norwegian bl… Read Full Bio ↴There are multiple artists named Mayhem;
1) Mayhem is a Norwegian black metal band formed in 1984 in Oslo, Norway. They were one of the founders of the Norwegian black metal scene and their music has strongly influenced the black metal genre. Mayhem's early career was highly controversial, primarily due to their notorious live performances, the 1991 suicide of vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin ("Dead") and the 1993 murder of guitarist Øystein Aarseth ("Euronymous") by former member Varg Vikernes ("Count Grishnackh") of Burzum.
The group released their Pure Fucking Armageddon demo and Deathcrush EP that were highly influential to the development of the "second wave" of scandinavian black metal, and amassed a loyal following through sporadic and notorious live performances, attracting further attention through their ties to the string of Norwegian church burnings and the incidents of violence surrounding them. Mayhem disbanded after Aarseth's murder, shortly before the release of their debut album, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, regarded as a classic of the black metal genre. Surviving former members Jan Axel Blomberg ("Hellhammer"), Jørn Stubberud ("Necrobutcher") and Sven Erik Kristiansen ("Maniac") reformed two years later with Rune Eriksen ("Blasphemer") replacing Aarseth. Attila Csihar and Morten Iversen ("Teloch") have since replaced Kristiansen and Eriksen, respectively. Their post-DMDS material is characterized by increased experimentation and more technical instrumentation. The 2007 album Ordo Ad Chao received the Spellemann Award for best heavy metal album.
The band's initial line-up consisted of Manheim on drums, Necrobutcher on bass guitar, and Euronymous on guitar. The vocalist Messiah was recruited in 1986. In 1987, Messiah departed and was replaced by Maniac on vocals; later, Dead and Hellhammer replaced Maniac and Manheim, respectively, to complete what is regarded by many fans as the group's classic lineup.
In the April of 1991, Dead, aged 22, committed suicide via a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. This happened in a house he was sharing in Kråkstad with the other members of the band. He left a suicide note, which began with "Excuse all the blood". Euronymous was first to discover the body, and took a series of polaroids of the corpse after stylizing it with the gun and knife Dead had used to end his life. One of these pictures was later used as cover art for the bootleg album Dawn of the Black Hearts. Parts of his suicide note were used as lyrics on the track "Life Eternal", which appeared on Mayhem's first LP, De Mysteriis dom Sathanas
According to Occultus, who briefly took a position as vocalist after Dead's suicide: "[Dead] didn't see himself as human; he saw himself as a creature from another world. He said he had many visions that his blood has frozen in his veins, that he was dead. That is the reason he took that name. He knew he would die."
The bullets used had been sent to him by Bergen, Norway, musician Kristian Vikernes (aka Varg Vikernes, Count Grishnackh; ex-Old Funeral, sole member of black metal band Burzum, later convicted murderer of Euronymous). Euronymous was particularly cold and opportunistic about Dead's suicide; in interviews he claimed, speciously, that Dead had killed himself due to the rising popularity of death metal, the Norwegian movement of Black Metal had risen against. According to Hellhammer, Euronymous took pieces of Dead's brain and made a stew, in which he put ham, frozen vegetables, and pepper. "He'd always said he wanted to eat flesh, so he figured this was an easy way." (Euronymous admitted in a later interview that these claims were false, though he had been intending to do so). Euronymous also claimed to have collected and forged fragments of Dead's skull into necklaces, sending pieces to those he felt 'worthy' (amongst those rumoured to be in possession of such pieces are the members of Swedish black metal band Marduk). Hellhammer has said he made a necklace from Dead's skull fragments as well.
As can perhaps be deduced from the band's chaotic past, Mayhem's discography is patchy. There are a staggering number of live releases, demos and bootlegs, and yet there are only a handful of official studio recordings. The band's first official release is the Deathcrush EP, featuring the Euronymous-Necrobutcher-Maniac-Manheim lineup; while its lyrics were rooted in the usual death and thrash metal obsessions of gore and violence, there were also the underpinnings of a darker philosophical vision, influenced in part by Norse mythology, the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, and Satanism (though Euronymous eschewed the Crowleyan and LeVayan forms for one more directly derived from Christianity). The Deathcrush EP has received quite a lot of praise in the years since its release, but even those who give it its most fervent praise generally agree that it was only a foreshadowing of what was to come.
The band's philosophical vision fully came to fruition after Hellhammer and Dead joined the group. Varg Vikernes, who would later play session bass on De Mysteriis dom Sathanas (intended to be the Latin for "Lord Satan's Secret Rites," but it is grammatically incorrect) after Necrobutcher's departure from the group, has been quoted as saying, "Until Hellhammer and Dead joined the band in 1989, Mayhem was a shitty, 'fun', hobby-band. If you read the lyrics on their Deathcrush album you'll know what I mean." The lineup with Hellhammer and Dead quickly began working on material for a full-length album, the aforementioned De Mysteriis dom Sathanas, but its recording would not be completed until 1993, after the deaths of Dead and Euronymous, and with Hungarian vocalist Attila Csihar, formerly of Tormentor and soon to be of Aborym, on the microphone. The only official performances featuring Dead on vocals are the "Freezing Moon" single and the Live in Leipzig album; there are also several bootlegged rehearsals, including one of his final performance called Out from the Dark.
Court struggles prevented the release of De Mysteriis dom Sathanas for several months after it was completed; Hellhammer was ordered to replace Varg Vikernes' bass parts with his own, but contrary to popular belief, he left them intact and simply lowered them slightly in the mix. He has been quoted as considering it fitting that murderer and victim should play on the same album. De Mysteriis dom Sathanas was finally released in 1994, and has often been cited as one of the greatest black metal albums of all time.
After the release of De Mysteriis, the group disbanded for awhile. However, Hellhammer eventually reformed the group with former vocalist Maniac, former bassist Necrobutcher and a new guitarist named Blasphemer. This incarnation of the group started out relatively close in sound to that of the group's old material on 1997's Wolf's Lair Abyss EP, which is regarded as a masterpiece almost worthy of comparison with De Mysteriis by some fans, but by 2000's Grand Declaration of War they had become a full-fledged avant-garde metal group. This album, which incorporated elements of electronica on one track and dramatic spoken-word passages on several others, confused and alienated many longtime fans while converting some new ones; it also displayed a heavy influence from progressive rock in its concept-based form and the way several tracks featured multiple movements or segued into one another. Grand Declaration was hailed as a masterpiece by some listeners and strongly denounced by others; in terms of how little it bears resemblance to the band's previous output, it can be compared to the left-turns taken by Dødheimsgard (666 International), Ulver (Themes from William Blake...) and Arcturus (La Masquerade Infernale), amongst others, although, unlike some of those albums, it remains firmly rooted in black metal territory.
2004's Chimera was a more conventional affair, although it still incorporates progressive elements on tracks like "Slaughter of Dreams." It was embraced by many of the fans who denounced Grand Declaration of War. After Chimera was released, Maniac was fired from the band, allegedly due to having gotten drunk and forgotten the words to songs one too many times. His replacement was Attila Csihar.
The band completed work on Ordo ad Chao (Latin for "Out of Order Comes Chaos"), its fourth album, in early 2007; it was released in North America on April 18, 2007, and to the rest of the world a day earlier. Ordo ad Chao featured a much rawer and more traditional black metal sound than the rest of the band's recent releases; nonetheless, it continued the band's exploration of more progressive songwriting, with "Illuminate Eliminate" being the band's second longest track ever at 9'40". Ordo ad Chao was exceptionally well-received both commercially and critically, and was the band's first album to reach the charts (in Norway and elsewhere).
Blasphemer left the group to focus on his other project Ava Inferi.
The band is set to be inducted into the Rockheim Hall of Fame, the Norwegian equivalent of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in September 2021, together with pop duo The Monroes and recording artist Casino Steel.
2) Mayhem is an alias of Emma Essex whose music includes various styles, such as electro house, techno and house.
Mayhem is an alias under the Halley Labs label. She is a female shark that produces what is generally electro house-inspired music with chiptune and breakbeat influences. She also stars in the game Shark Attack. Mayhem was one of the mascots of PSURG Design along with Mischief, who she was shown to be in a relationship with.
3) A hardcore punk band from UK that released three 7" EPs titled "Gentle Murder" in 1982, "Pulling Puppet Strings" in 1983 and "Bloodrush" in 1985. They also figured on various compilations, such as "Riotious Assembly" and the international "Welcome to 1984" with the unreleased song "I Defy"
4) A black metal band from Japan with a six-track demo released in 1985.
5) A Hungarian Venom-like pre-black/thrash metal band who released one demo in 1989.
6) A thrash metal band from Portland, Oregon: formed in 1983. They released the album _Buried Alive_.
Freezing Moon
Mayhem Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Everything here is so dark
I remember it as from a dream
In the corner of this time
Diabolic shapes float by
Out from the dark
I remember it was here I died
By following the freezing moon
It's night again, night you beautiful
I please my hunger on living humans
Night of hunger, follow it's call
Follow the freezing moon
Darkness is growing, the eternity opens
The cemetery lights up again
As in ancient times
Fallen souls, die behind my steps
By following the freezing moon, yeah
Mayhem's song "Freezing Moon" is a haunting tune describing the cold, dark, and diabolic aura of nature that surrounds the singer, who recalls it as from a dream. The lyrics are eerie and chilling, capturing the essence of death and night. The song has a consistent rhythm, and the lines flow continuously, building a sense of the vastness of the universe and the eternity of darkness.
The song's theme is death and the afterlife. The singer recalls dying in the same cold, dark atmosphere, and it becomes apparent that the song is narrated from the perspective of a soul that has departed the physical plane. As the night grows darker, the eternity of death opens up, and the cemetery lights up again. The lyrics also touch on the hunger for human flesh and suggest that the singer's spirit is not at peace.
In conclusion, Mayhem's "Freezing Moon" is a bleak and chilling piece of music that is almost impossible to listen to without feeling the aura of death and darkness. The lyrics are symbolic, and the entire song is a beautiful poem that reflects the fear and fascination that humans have with the concept of life after death.
Line by Line Meaning
Everything here is so cold
The environment being described is emotionally distant and uncaring.
Everything here is so dark
Describing the bleakness and lack of light in the scenery.
I remember it as from a dream
The singer recalls this memory with a sense of uncertainty, it seems like they could be remembering wrong.
In the corner of this time
Describing a specific moment in the past that they remember distinctly.
Diabolic shapes float by
The artist sees demonic, evil imagery surrounding them as if it were a hallucination.
Out from the dark
The darkness has a foreboding nature, and things seem to be moving within it.
I remember it was here I died
A realization and acceptance of mortality.
By following the freezing moon
Implies that the artist was either seeking death or knew that it would follow them.
It's night again, night you beautiful
The darkness is seen as beautiful and alluring.
I please my hunger on living humans
The artist is likely a vampire or supernatural creature that feeds on humans.
Night of hunger, follow it's call
The hunger and desire for blood is strong and overpowering.
Follow the freezing moon
The artist is compelled to follow death and darkness, as if it is their fate to do so.
Darkness is growing, the eternity opens
The darkness is being personified as something that is happening and changing.
The cemetery lights up again
The imagery is unsettling, as if the singer is witnessing something supernatural.
As in ancient times
The feeling of timelessness is reinforced, as if the events being described have happened over and over again.
Fallen souls, die behind my steps
The artist seems to be causing death and destruction in their wake, as if it is their purpose.
By following the freezing moon, yeah
Reiterating the artist's fate and their need to follow the darkness and death that surrounds them.
Lyrics © TIMELINE PUBLICATIONS
Written by: JAN AXEL VON BLOMBERG
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Stewart Mcardle
on Symbols of Bloodswords
BloodRules