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Rating: Norwegian forest; a regular white house, an ordinary girl, leaning against the doorframe, watches something happening off-screen: a young, slim, very pale blonde advances toward the cameraman, eyes half-closed due to the sun hitting his face, his white shirt hidden beneath a military jacket; he makes a few faces, bulges his eyes, and whispers something, then enters the house. If it weren't for the fact that the guy is Dead, the historic singer of Mayhem and an unfortunate symbol of that generation of musicians, there wouldn't be much to be pleased about. But that's him, in the only video document you can get your hands on after years of listening to poor-quality bootlegs, and you imagine him shaking his head and lifting it to scream "deathcrush!" into the microphone.
And indeed, during the short hour of the document, in the rare moments when he is engaged behind the microphone, Dead is just as you imagine him, as you have seen him in photos taken from German live shows: he screams and curses during the songs, he gets agitated and shakes during the sharp riffs and the double bass patterns, he introduces all the songs with phrases that would make you laugh if uttered by anyone else - but he entered the legend also for that - "Malleeeus Maaaleficaarum", "When it's cold, and when it's dark, the frezing moon"!
But then you see him as you wouldn't have expected: while the others play, he agitates in the shadows, makes ironic comments, and performs gaudy dances so un-black metal that they could make Gorgoroth jump to their feet, so human that you understand why Mayhem were a cut above the competition. The company is just as impressive. Egg cartons on the walls, a window behind Hellhammer's drums bathes the musicians in light: the Nordic light so dim and the poor quality of the footage, however, create a cloak of darkness around Mayhem, in an atmosphere as little satanic as it is exciting. Between songs, skits between the musicians and the friends watching them: Euronymous congratulates Hellhammer by mimicking the absurd performance behind the drums, Necrobutcher jokes on the sofas and illuminates his face with a lighter...
This creates an atmosphere of strong contrast that generates various and complex sensations in the viewer: on one hand, admiration for the band in their most popular phase - Euronymous, majestic, playing while looking at the guitar, Hellhammer frenzied on the drums - on the other, the chance to see that these legends were just boys, with their quirks and taunts... a humanity that is not easy to find in the booklet of "De mysteriis" or in the lyrics of "Deathcrush" and something to savor.
The quality of the recording is not very good (somewhere between the poor Live in Jessheim and the great Live in Leipzig) but it brings out the highs of the drums and allows for a clear distinction of the instruments. The pieces are played monstrously, violent, and already show the departure from the first compositional phase, the Death/Thrash one.
Giving it a score would be blasphemous (for fans of the genre) and useless (for all those who would be tempted to approach black through this DVD).
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