Random Records with Steve O- Mayhem's Live in Leipzig

Steve O - February 13, 2014

So we’re gonna try something a little different for Random Records this time. Five records that sound nothing alike, but there’s something connecting all of them. See if you can figure out what it is.

This is the second live record on this list. Both are from highly influential musicians, but on quite different levels. Regardless of that, Mayhem had as much to do with the rise of black metal as Pete Seeger did with folk music. This was one of the few records to feature the legendary Dead (a.k.a. Per Yngve Ohlin) on vocals.

Live in Leipzig, the record, probably doesn’t have the same ambience as live in Leipzig, the concert. While the show is famous for the pig’s heads on stage and Dead cutting himself up, the record provided early takes of classic songs like “Freezing Moon” and “Funeral Fog” and live versions of raw songs like “Chainsaw Gutsfuck” and “Pure Fucking Armageddon.”

While the show was recorded in 1990, by the time it was released in 1993 one of the members was dead and another would be within a month. Live in Leipzig is super raw, so that might be either what draws you in or sends you packing. Either way, it’s definitely an important chapter in the Mayhem discography and black metal history.