The album is infamous and controversial for bearing a photograph of vocalist Dead (Per Yngve Ohlin), shortly after his suicide on 8 April 1991. The photograph was taken by guitarist Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth), shortly after he entered the house the band shared and discovered the body.

Bull Metal, a penpal of Euronymous and owner of Warmaster Records, was sent a copy of one of the photos Euronymous had taken of Dead's corpse which ended up becoming the cover image. Euronymous had taken additional pictures of Dead's body in different positions (one of them with Dead "sitting half up, with the shotgun on his knee" not used as cover), but these photos were found and destroyed by Euronymous's father after he was murdered in 1993.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_(musician)#Self-harm_and_suicide The fact that it uses their goofy pseudonyms throughout makes it very surreal reading.

In time, Dead's social situation and his fixation on death caused his mental state to worsen greatly.

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According to Hellhammer, Dead spent much of his time writing letters and drawing. He "just sat in his room and became more and more depressed."

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Necrobutcher said that, after living together for a while, Dead and Euronymous "got on each other's nerves a lot."

His body was found by Euronymous […] Instead of calling the police immediately, Euronymous hitchhiked[29] to a nearby shop to purchase a disposable camera with which he photographed the body; after re-arranging some items for his pictures, he proceeded to call emergency services.[2][8][30]

guy was a gem

The scene at the time was ridiculously absurd, funny and filled with kids who thought themselves as "uuuuh we're really like super evil".

Last Podcast on the Left makes an entertaining case with this. Even if you take away the jokes, what's left is a story filled with dumbasses.