Blood Fire Death is the fourth album by the Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 band Bathory

Bathory (band)

Bathory was a Swedish heavy metal band, formed by Quorthon in 1983. They are regarded as pioneers of both black metal and viking metal. Quorthon remained the main songwriter and member of Bathory for more than two decades. Bathory was permanently ended after Quorthon's death in 2004...

. It was released in October 1988. The album, although mostly black metal

Black metal

Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, blast beat drumming, raw recording, and unconventional song structure....

, includes some of the first examples of Viking metal

Viking metal

Viking metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by its galloping pace, keyboard-rich anthemic sound, bleakness and dramatic emphasis on lyrical themes of Norse mythology, Norse paganism, and the Viking Age...

.

The lyrics to "The Golden Walls of Heaven" and "Dies Irae" are acrostic

Acrostic

An acrostic is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message. As a form of constrained writing, an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aid memory retrieval. A famous...

s: the first letters of each line form phrases, namely "SATAN" (repeated 8 times) and "CHRIST THE BASTARD SON OF HEAVEN". The lyrics to "For All Those Who Died" were taken from a poem by Erica Jong

Erica Jong

Erica Jong is an American author and teacher best known for her fiction and poetry.-Career:A 1963 graduate of Barnard College, and with an M.A...

, first published in her book Witches (1981). The first three verses of "A Fine Day to Die" are taken from "Cassilda's Song" of Robert W. Chambers

Robert W. Chambers

Robert William Chambers was an American artist and writer.-Biography:He was born in Brooklyn, New York, to William P. Chambers , a famous lawyer, and Caroline Chambers , a direct descendant of Roger Williams, the founder of Providence, Rhode Island...

' "The King in Yellow

The King in Yellow

The King in Yellow is a collection of short stories written by Robert W. Chambers and published in 1895. The stories could be categorized as early horror fiction or Victorian Gothic fiction, but the work also touches on mythology, fantasy, mystery, science fiction and romance...

".

The front cover comes from a painting by Peter Nicolai Arbo

Peter Nicolai Arbo

Peter Nicolai Arbo was a Norwegian painter, who specialized in painting motifs from Norwegian history and images from Norse mythology...

: Åsgårdsreien (1872).

Track listing

• All music/lyrics by Quorthon

1. "Odens Ride Over Nordland" – 2:59
2. "A Fine Day to Die" – 8:35
3. "The Golden Walls of Heaven" – 5:22
4. "Pace 'til Death" – 3:39
5. "Holocaust" – 3:25
6. "For All Those Who Died" – 4:57
7. "Dies Irae
   Dies Irae
   Dies Irae is a thirteenth century Latin hymn thought to be written by Thomas of Celano . It is a medieval Latin poem characterized by its accentual stress and its rhymed lines. The metre is trochaic...
   
   " – 5:11
8. "Blood Fire Death" – 10:28
9. "Outro" – 0:58

Note: The outro is not included on the cassette release.

Credits

• Quorthon
  Quorthon
  Tomas Forsberg, better known as "Quorthon" , was a multi-instrumentalist and the founder and songwriter of the pioneering Swedish black metal band Bathory. He is also credited with creating the Viking metal genre...
  
   – guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  s, vocals, bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  , drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  
• Peter Nicolai Arbo
  Peter Nicolai Arbo
  Peter Nicolai Arbo was a Norwegian painter, who specialized in painting motifs from Norwegian history and images from Norse mythology...
  
  – album cover painting, The Wild Hunt of Odin (Åsgårdsreien)
• Pelle Matteus – photography