Fuck yeah, here we go again. Mayhem have recently become one of my favourite bands. I have to admit I didn’t rate them as highly in the early 90s but the lads have improved in a huge way and have progressed well beyond the “necro” death metal tag they had back then to be producing nightmare inducing death art of the highest order these days.
The album opens up with “Ephemeral Eternity” and this just show cases how far the boys have come. The use of minor scales and dissonant but very haunting notes on the guitar that fit the mood perfectly is very impressive. This is all backed by the absolutely pummelling drumming of Hellhammer on drums. Hellhammer has for a long time now marked himself as the benchmark by which all other black metal drummers are judged and all this album does is re-enforce this standard. “Despair” is up next and this is pure black metal supremacy.
Things contintue in a similarly glorious vein with vocalist Atilla’s vocals sounding like death itself. There is no other way to describe what comes out of this guy. It’s black metal but even blacker than most of the vocalists in the scene.
Overall this is a great effort. The band have come a long way since their early days and are now amongst the best of the black metal breed. Their music I find now conjures up way scarier and creepier stuff than it ever did in the early days.
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