Ok things had progressed, fallen apart, been rebuilt and sensationalised a lot by the time MAYHEM was able to put out their second album. The album had been written in the years leading up to this release but in the mean time the bands bass player Necrobutcher had left the band to be replaced by Varg Vikerness (who went on to form Burzum), Euronymous had hired drummer extroidinaire Hellhammer. The the singer “Dead” killed himself, and was replaced by Attila Csihar, to complete the line-up that would record this album. After the recording of the album amidst a series of church burnings and other controversies the bass player then killed the founding member (guitarist) Euronymous and subsequently found himeself serving a lengthy jail term. Thankfully the album had been completed and was ready to be released.
As you could imagine the whirlwind of events surrounding the band created a huge media interest in the band and the underground metal scene lapped it up, as did some of the mainstream publications and the album sold rather well and propelled the band into international stardom. Even after the death of two of its key members the evil recorded on this tape was destined to live on for decades to come.
The album itself was apparently recorded in 3 days and has the harsh Norwegian Black Metal sound that much of the scene at the time was known for. The lo-fi recording serves to enhance the atmosphere of desolation and death the band aimed to present with this album. The sound is a thick wall of sound with buzzsaw guitars and creature vocals backed by Hellhammers unrelenting drum assault. The band aimed to create the most extreme music ever, and while musically I have to say this isn’t the most extreme music by any stretch the hate, the feelings behind it and the death that surrounded the band certainly contribute to it being one of the most extreme in terms of its mythology and atmosphere.
Musically this is definitely a step above their debut album. The standout track on this would have to be “Freezing Moon” but really with Black Metal like this you either like it or you don’t. This is why I tend to review extreme metal albums as a whole rather than by their individual tracks. The experience of listening to this is unrelenting and harsh. It is desolate and when you know the back story behind this stuff it does reek of death a little too. Black Metal like this is not my chosen genre of music but nobody can deny that Mayhem were pioneers of the scene and responsible for thrusting it into view of the mainstream of Heavy metal.
Musically once you get past the extremity of the music the melodies are quite simple and if you’re listening at night in the dark they can be quite hypnotic. The songs tend to be simpler arrangements you can get stuck in your head rather than the complexity that many Black Metal bands would become later on. Hellhammers drums are excellent but still not a shadow of the drum monster he would become in later years, and Attila vocals literally sound like he’s dead (no pun intended) or rotting in a pit somewhere. Over all I like it, and the band have succeeded in creating the cold dead atmosphere they intended. Even though many of them didn’t live to see the release of this album this captures the chaotic time that it was recorded in.
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