Year: 2019
Total Time: 49:24
Label: Century Media

Writing a review for a new release of MAYHEM is not as simple as it looks. We are talking about a band that exists since 1984 and in those 35 years, they have released only six albums. I am not counting the countless EPs, demos etc. The reasons that they have only six albums, are not relevant in this review. There is no reason to start writing about them and I don’t believe that there is someone that doesn’t know a thing or two about the band’s history. Going back to being a tough task to review MAYHEM’s new album, it is a challenge indeed, as each one of those six albums is completely different from each other. They are six different aspects of the same band, so let’s see what we have here.

MAYHEM is the most unconventional Black Metal band. They never followed the classic recipe, except maybe in the “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas” album. For this reason, I will begin from the album’s production and more specifically from the drums. The drums were recorded at the Necromorbus Studios, inside an old church, for the reason that they could have a physical reverb. In a church. Can you see the irony here? Jokes aside, those places are ideal if you want to have such physical FXs in a recording. The guitars are bold, multidimensional I could say and Teloch and Ghul didn’t follow the typical path of plain and simple tremolo picking. We have melodies, of course we have the beloved Black Metal riffing, we have solos (yes solos!) and regarding the sound, I believe we can safely say that it is one of the best periods of MAYHEM. The bass? What can we say more than that our beloved Jorn or Necrobutcher if you prefer, gave us a huge stone wall of bass with an awesome sound full of distortion! Yes, I know that I sound more like a fan, but as much as I try to be objective, it is not easy to go away from it. As for Attila, we have his classic and successful Black Metal vocals and by classic, I mean two things. From one side, Attila’s voice is a huge part of the genre, from the other side, is the voice that a Black Metal fan is waiting to hear. Apart from this kind of voice, we have also the sick side of him, you know the one with the screams and the chanting thing, with which we love him at “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas”.

Let’s go to the music part of the album, which is the most important. In the aspect of aesthetics and atmosphere, I don’t think we have to say that it is a proper Black Metal album, right? That goes without saying! We have razorblade guitars, blast beats, growling vocals, a bit more brutal vocals, chanting vocals (it is Attila after all) and from a certain perspective, it is a classic Black Metal album. At the same time though, we are talking about MAYHEM here. Without knowing for sure, I think Teloch took the song writing on him, but whoever did, the truth is one. The band, respecting its own past, recorded an album that has the atmosphere and the sound of “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas” and the later approach (later as in after “Ordo Ad Chao”) and combined them with the best way possible. We could say that here we have the bastard child of Euronymous and Blasphemer. Maybe at some points, someone can listen to some “Pagan Fears” or “Chainsaw Gutsfuck” as well. The album begins full of blast beats and grabs the listener from the face during the first seconds. It is certain that from the moment that we press the “play” button, the album will be listened to without any kind of pausing. We can listen to slow parts, nightmarish parts, with only the bass playing or some guitar riff, dragging the listener to the grave, and as we slowly breath our last breaths, there goes the blast beats again. This album will not let you wither away and die and if you manage to do so, it will not be a peaceful one. This album is macabre, with a black soul and it is that someone or that thing that lurks in the shadows when you hear a sound and you believe that you are being followed.

As the album is being officially released almost at the end of 2019, I can safely say, after listening to a lot of Black Metal released for this year that, in my opinion, it is the best album for 2019 for this genre! “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas 2” some people said, me being one of them and not at all in a bad way. It is the continuation of the best and most iconic Black Metal album ever released, filtered through the inevitable influences that 2019 brings, from a band that was never afraid to experiment and to change. From a band that whenever they saw fit, returned to do what they know best. To Black Metal. And if there is one band that knows how to play Black Metal, that band is MAYHEM!

Rating: 9/10

Νίκος Σάμιος

Related Link: MAYHEM – Official Website