Dawn of the Black Hearts

Dawn of the Black Hearts is a bootleg live album by the Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. It is infamous for bearing a photograph of Mayhem's vocalist, Dead (Per Yngve Ohlin), after his suicide in April 1991. This photograph was allegedly taken by Mayhem's guitarist, Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth), upon discovering Dead's body. Despite only being a "semi-official" release, this notorious bootleg is commonly listed as one of the band's main albums.

The album was originally released in 1995 by Warmaster Records by Mauricio "Bull Metal" Montoya, owner of Warmaster Records in Colombia and pen pal of Euronymous. This original version contains eight songs from a concert in Sarpsborg on 28 February 1990. The cover artwork has golden letters.

The album has been reissued many times by various independent record labels. Many of these reissues feature an extra four songs, recorded at a concert in Ski during 1986, with Messiah on vocals. Some of the re-releases erroneously claim that the additional songs come from a Lillehammer show and feature Maniac on vocals.

The original press on CD was released in 1995. It has 8 tracks on it which are from Live In Sarpsborg. The writing on the cover is done in red lettering with Mayhem title done in black. The back cover of the jewel case has the letter written by Euronymous which explains Ohlin's suicide.

Line - Up

* Dead (Per Yngve Ohlin) - vocals
* Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth) - electric guitar
* Necrobutcher (Jørn Stubberud) - bass guitar
* Hellhammer (Jan Axel Blomberg) - drums

Re-release Bonus Track Line - Up

* "Billy" Messiah (Eirik Nordheim) - vocals
* Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth) - electric guitar
* Necrobutcher (Jørn Stubberud) - bass guitar
* Manheim (Kjetil Manheim) - drums

Trivia

Extra songs included on many reissues, recorded in 1986 with Messiah as vocalist and Manheim as drummer:

Originally released on LP by Mauricio "Bull Metal" Montoya (R.I.P) who played in
Masacre and was also the owner of Warmaster Records in Colombia. The original
version has golden letters on the cover and was limited to 300 copies. Illegally
reissued many times afterwards, making it one of the most bootlegged albums in
the whole metal history.

Re-released in a DVD case as release number 001 on Anti-Grishnackh Records.
This version contains the "Pure Fucking Armageddon" demo as bonus. It also
combines "Danse Macabre" and "Black Metal" together in one track.