De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas Mayhem (Deathlike Silence)
Norway is a beautiful but bleak country, a windswept land of glaciers and rugged mountains where the ghosts of the old gods still stalk the frozen forests.
Fittingly, in the 1990s the nation was the world capital of black metal - an evil ear-bleeding cacophony of highly distorted guitars, ridiculously fast drumming, and shrieked vocals dealing with nihilism, death and anti-Christian themes.
And arguably the blackest band were Mayhem, who have gone down as the most controversial outfit in heavy metal history because of their links to arson attacks on Norway's oldest churches, the suicide of one vocalist and the murder of another by a fellow band member.
In their early days, Mayhem became notorious for performing live covered in blood and wearing corpse-like makeup, with pig or sheep heads impaled on stakes and placed at the front of the stage. Vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin, who went by the stage name of Dead (pictured at centre), would slash himself with knives and broken glass as he stalked the stage and shrieked like a banshee.
But then things started to get really weird. In 1991, while the band were recording second album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (Lord Satan's Secret Rites), Dead blew his brains out, leaving a note saying 'Excuse all the blood. Cheers.'