Bathory (album)

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Bathory is the first studio album by the Swedish extreme metal band Bathory. It was released in October 1984, through Tyfon Grammofon. Many people say that this album is the very first black metal album.^[1]

The band Bathory was formed one year earlier. Quorthon was working part-time at the small record label Tyfon. In late 1983 and early 1984, the label was putting together a lot of songs by Scandinavian metal bands.^[2] At the last minute, one of the bands backed out. Tyfon agreed to let Bathory appear on the record as a replacement, and the band recorded two songs for the compilation—"Sacrifice" and "The Return of the Darkness and Evil"—in January. The album, Scandinavian Metal Attack, was released in March 1984 and was Bathory's first appearance on record.^[3] Much of the fan-mail was directed towards Bathory, and Tyfon asked them to record a full-album.^[3]

On 22 May 1984, Bathory had their first and only rehearsal together before recording the album.^[3] On 14 June the band entered Heavenshore Studio in Stockholm—a garage—to record the album.^[3] The recording and mixing were done in somewhere between 32 and 56 hours.^[3]

• Quorthon – vocals, guitar, record producer
• Stefan Larsson – drums
• Rickard Bergman – bass guitar
• The Boss – audio engineer, record producer