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 lyrics Fenriz of Darkthrone wrote for the band; the lyrics sheet can be found in the 2009 limited edition EP, Life Eternal.
Despite being a bootleg, the album is sometimes listed as one of the band's main albums, mainly due to the notoriety regarding the cover art, which is an image of the late Mayhem vocalist Per "Dead" Ohlin's suicide. The image of his death was photographed by guitarist Euronymous via a disposable camera.

Cover

The album is infamous and controversial for bearing a photograph of vocalist Dead, shortly after his suicide in April 1991. The photograph was taken by guitarist Euronymous, shortly after he entered the cabin the band shared and discovered the body.
Euronymous took bits of Dead's skull and made them into necklaces for members of the black metal scene, including the band's drummer Hellhammer. In disgust with Euronymous' actions, the bass player Necrobutcher left Mayhem and was replaced by Burzum's Varg Vikernes, who murdered Euronymous two years later.

Release

The album was released in 1995 on vinyl in an edition of 300 copies by Warmaster Records by Mauricio "Bull Metal" Montoya, owner of Warmaster Records Colombia, original drummer of the Colombian death metal band Masacre and a pen pal of Euronymous. This original version contains eight songs from a concert in Sarpsborg on 28 February 1990. The label bears the band's logo and the album title in golden ink.
The album has been reissued many times by various bootleg record labels, with many versions including four extra songs, recorded at the band's first ever concert in Ski, Norway on 20 April 1985, with Messiah on vocals. Most of the re-releases erroneously claim that the additional songs come from a 1986 Lillehammer show with Maniac on vocals, but the band did not play live at all during that year, or indeed, for the rest of that decade. They would not play in Lillehammer until many years later.
It 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 master source. In 2018, Live in Sarpsborg was one of many albums that were compiled into and released as the Cursed in Eternity box set, which features never-before seen live footage of the Sarpsborg set.

Track listing

The original track listing :
Extra songs included on many reissues :
Lineup on original release:
Re-release bonus tracks lineup: