''Ad Majorem Sathanas Gloriam'' is the seventh studio album by Norwegian

black metal Black metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include Tempo#Beats per minute, fast tempos, a Screaming (music)#Black metal, shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted Electric guitar, guitars played with tr ...

band

Gorgoroth Gorgoroth is a Norwegian black metal band based in Bergen. It was formed in 1992 by guitarist Infernus, who is the sole original member remaining, and has released nine studio albums. Gorgoroth are a Satanism, Satanic band and have drawn contro ...

. It was released in Europe on 19 June 2006 by

Regain Records Regain Records is a Swedish-based independent record label. The label predominantly released death metal and black metal albums. Regain Records was founded from what remained of the former label, Wrong Again Records, by Per Gyllenbäck in 1997. ...

and in the US on 25 July 2006 by

Candlelight Records Candlelight Records is a British record label based in London, founded by former Extreme Noise Terror bass guitarist Lee Barrett in 1993. The record label originally specialized in black metal, but quickly expanded to various other forms of hea ...

. This was the only Gorgoroth album on which all of the lyrics and music were written by

Gaahl Kristian Eivind Espedal (born 7 August 1975), better known by his stage name Gaahl, is a Norwegian vocalist. He is best known as the former frontman of Norwegian black metal band Gorgoroth. He is also the founder and lead vocalist of Trelldom an ...

and

King ov Hell Tom Cato Visnes (born 27 November 1974),Spellemann Spellemann is a folk music album by Norwegian singer Elisabeth Andreassen. It was released in Norway on 9 February 2009. On the album charts, it peaked at #6 in Norway and #45 in Sweden. Track listing #" Klinga mina klockor" #"Här är gudagott a ...

award in the "Metal" category. It is the first Gorgoroth album with no Norwegian lyrics. In November 2007, ''Ad Majorem Sathanas Gloriam'' was reissued with a slightly different cover and a DVD containing the "Carving a Giant" music video and another video documenting how the album was recorded.

Title and artwork

The album title, a

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

term meaning "for the greater glory of

Satan Satan, also known as the Devil, is a devilish entity in Abrahamic religions who seduces humans into sin (or falsehood). In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the '' yetzer hara'', or ' ...

", was conceived by

Infernus Roger Tiegs (born 18 June 1972), better known by his stage name Infernus, is a Norwegian black metal musician and Satanist. He is the sole founding member and chief ideologist of the black metal band Gorgoroth, formed in 1992, in addition to b ...

inspired by his reading an article about the

Counter-Reformation The Counter-Reformation (), also sometimes called the Catholic Revival, was the period of Catholic resurgence that was initiated in response to, and as an alternative to or from similar insights as, the Protestant Reformations at the time. It w ...

, the

Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...

and

Ignatius de Loyola Ignatius of Loyola ( ; ; ; ; born Íñigo López de Oñaz y Loyola; – 31 July 1556), venerated as Saint Ignatius of Loyola, was a Basque Spaniard Catholic priest and theologian, who, with six companions, founded the religious order of the So ...

. It is technically incorrectly translated; the accurate translation of Latin for "The Greater Glory of Satan" would be "Ad Majorem Sathanae Gloriam". The cover artwork was taken from the 1850 painting ''

Dante and Virgil ''Dante and Virgil in Hell'' is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French academic painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau, from 1850. It is in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. The painting depicts a scene from Dante's ''Divine Comedy'', which narrates a ...

'' by

William-Adolphe Bouguereau William-Adolphe Bouguereau (; 30 November 1825 – 19 August 1905) was a French Academic art, academic painter. In his realistic genre paintings, he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of Classicism, classical subjects, with a ...

.https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/dante-and-virgile/-AF79SI4-gGMKA?hl=en Dante and Virgile

Track listing

Personnel

Gorgoroth

* Gorgoroth – mixing in

Bergen Bergen (, ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, second-largest city in Norway after the capital Oslo. By May 20 ...

–

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

–

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

; mastering **

King ov Hell Tom Cato Visnes (born 27 November 1974),