Mayhem – Wolf's Lair Abyss

The booklet on these soulseller reissues is cool and all but I really miss the original digipak's poster/lyric insert.
Give us a special edition for 2027 please.

Sounds good overall. The mastering is more focused on "trebble", lack of bass sometime. A little bit of surface noise even after cleaning.

Back on Black gets a lot of crap, and probably rightly so. But I have to say, this pressing sounds awesome! Buy with confidence.

Not the best sound clarity even with ML styli, but given the original sound quality, I guess it's ok. Artwork and inlay materials are stunning though.

Each Mayhem release is an odious event in the world of Black Metal. They just can't go unnoticed, each release gets a lot of reproaches, but later it is doomed to become a cult. These are the realities of all the decades of the band's existence. "Wolf's Lair Abyss" is in many ways a provocative and decisive release, especially considering that it is the first full-fledged studio recording after "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas", which is a benchmark for the genre as a whole. The musical material has become much more difficult, the structures are even more progressive and experimental in some ways, but still the spirit of Mayhem, which everyone knows from the recordings of the original line-up, is preserved here. Looking back over 30+ years of Mayhem's musical career, "Wolf's Lair Abyss" can rightly be called one of the band's best recordings.

The reissue of the album from Soulseller on transparent clear vinyl turned out to be successful. The sound is excellent, at least by the standards of not the highest quality original recording. The sound from this vinyl has dynamics and attack, the playback is clean and loud enough. The laconic timing of the release is complemented by two optional bonus tracks from the single that preceded the release of this EP. The edition is also supplemented with a full-size booklet, which also makes a pleasant impression. A worthy and very solid press, which can definitely be recommended to the collection.

Anyone have any comment on the sound quality of this pressing? I had the original '97 vinyl years ago and it sounded much worse than the old cd. Much more distorted... and I've also seen others state the newer Soulseller pressings are the same, unfortunately... So has anyone directly played this one against the old CD? I don't expect it to be any BETTER but it'd be very nice to have a pressing that isn't worse!

I have both the season in blasphemy and soulseller versions. The box set version is a little more flat overall, but the guitar is a bit shrill. The soulseller sounds great but less natural, and a bit louder & compressed (but not overly like a lot of remasters) like they were really trying to tweak the eq to improve it. That firework sound effect sounds amazing and lifelike on the soulseller one, I thought someone dropped something in my house at first. Both sound pretty great but the box set version sounds a bit more natural to me. The bonus tracks sound great, and you can hear everything in the mix really well, but even more tweaked compared to the chaos reborn versions.

I have both the original Misanthropy vinyl pressing, as well as the new Soulseller version. In short....the new Soulseller version is MUCH BETTER, sound-wise, as well as construction. The cover is thicker & the booklet is expanded. No knock on Misanthropy, that was how black metal vinyl was released during the time...thin covers, thin, poor sounding vinyl.

One question: I have multiple copies with the same barcode, matrix and mould, but the logo on the disc itself is either white, or brown-ish (more visible on the center part of the back of the disc, at the compact disc logo). Anyone has an idea why, what does it mean?

I've got the black version. The original Misanthropy cd sounds much, much better than this. Something is wrong and I don't know what.
I Expected a big, great sound, but no. Maybe it's just me, maybe It's either the pressing plant or the files this record is pressed from.
The bonus tracks are excellent though.