Though influential to black metal, its lyrics and sound were largely influenced by
thrash metal bands. After vocalist
Dead joined the group, the band adopted darker lyrical topics and guitarist
Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth) started rejecting most other metal bands as their lyrics turned towards "social awareness" and "normal" topics instead of death worship; Euronymous then asked Schnitzler to compose an intro for the album; rather than record a new composition Schnitzler gave Euronymous a random piece from his archives, which would later become known as "Silvester Anfang". Drummer
Kjetil Manheim later stated that the band's sound was "something that [the studio technician] did not know how to record (...) so he just set the settings and we recorded". He also noted that there was "no mix, before or after" and "no overdubs: bass, drums, guitar are live and then we recorded the vocals after". In 2008, Daniel Ekeroth wrote, "The two visionaries [Aarseth and Per 'Dead' Ohlin] pushed each other further into darkness, and sometime in 1990 they finally adopted the Satanic image that would become so crucial for the genre [...] It's well documented that Øystein initially was very into death metal and
grindcore". According to Dead, most, but not all of the lyrics were written by bassist
Necrobutcher.
Maniac performed vocals on all of the tracks except "Pure Fucking Armageddon", which was sung by Messiah. The
Venom cover "Witching Hour" was sung by Messiah and Maniac. Manheim played piano on "(Weird) Manheim". ==Reception and legacy==