Mayhem - Grand Declaration Of War

My recent Sehnsucht review reminded me that I have to touch upon Grand Declaration Of War by Mayhem. Contrary to a lot of Mayhem fans, Grand Declaration is my favourite album from the group. The clinical execution, insane song structures and bizarre techno passages are a hundred thousand million miles away from Deathcrush and the like; the fact that this is even the same band (to a degree) is startling. 

Maniac is not my favourite Mayhem vocalist. In fact, it is quite hard to pick a favourite, as all of them have brought their own dark magic to the proceedings in various different ways. On Grand Declaration Of War, Maniac acts as the perverted ring leader; his surreal, jarring commentary leading the dexterous and intense onslaught with a psychopathic confidence. Meanwhile, Hellhammer Featuring 9000 Triggers lays total and absolute waste to the drum kit. Love him or loathe him, the drumming performance here is nothing short of mind boggling. The guitar work too, is a lot sharper than the barbed wire on the cover art, no doubt, with pure wandering, barbed, terrifying black metal riffage! 

Stand out tracks for me include the erratic "A Time To Die", the bizarre "A Bloodsword and a Colder Sun" (parts one and two!) and "Crystalized Pain in Deconstruction". Whatever your opinion on this experimental album, there can be no doubt that it has pushed the definitions of what can be considered black metal.

Sehnsucht - Wuste

Well, now I know what Grand Declaration of War would have sounded like if Maniac was given full creative control! I'm kidding of course; the Richter-like artistic meandering here would be far too much to take for an intolerant little man like Hellhammer. But, as per always, I digress. Sehnsucht is the experimental / power electronics project between Maniac and his wife Vivian Slaughter, who also plays in Gallhammer. There are a few other musicians also involved in this project, but aurally it seems to center around Maniac and his disturbing prose.

Imagine feral electronics meets beret-tipping poetry and dark, dense atmospherics, backed with cutting electronic riffage and doused in stale rose water, or something. "Cunt Queen" makes for some interesting listening, but the best track, hands down, is the epic "Hanging In English Garden"; a ten minute romp through all of the shit listed above. Drastic!

Mayhem - Esoteric Warfare

Esoteric Warfare is (at the time of writing) the most recent offering by the current incarnation of legendary black metal icons, Mayhem. For a band that has always been knee-deep in, well, mayhem, it is perhaps of no surprise that their back-catalogue has been somewhat inconsistent; often strikingly different music styles counteract each other as the band continues to unfurl it's unholy magic on the unsuspecting metal world. Contrary to this, Esoteric Warfare, despite it's kinda "meh" (I'm sorry) production job, is one of the more consistent records the band has put out.

"Watchers" was the lead single here, representing the mushy, clumsily-brutal atmospherics of modern day Mayhem nicely for the festering masses. With the second most popular track here being "Psy War", it is with unfortunately ease that one can compartmentalise this album to these first two tracks, and lose sight of the rest of this beast, which is exactly what it seems Mayhem do when it comes to playing anything off of this live, but there we go.

The chaos that Mayhem exists in continues to produce unpredictable and unusual results.

Burzum - Burzum

So I finally grew the fuck up and got this album. After years of holding out, hoping and praying for a shot at the original pressing from back in the day, I finally gave up on owning a piece of musical history. I can only justify so much for a record. It is, at the end of the day, historic or not, it's just a piece of vinyl. I don't like Burzum enough to justify spending hundreds on an original Deathlike Silence pressing. Back On Black's repress in a lovely gatefold that includes the follow-up EP Aske (which is just as pricey in its original form) will do nicely, methinks. I still paid over the odds for it thanks to Plastic Head but it is a fancy package so I'm not too unhappy with how much I paid.

I'm not sure if Burzum is the black metal record; but it definitely encompasses what the original scene was trying to achieve. For me, personally, at least. Every time I suggest this around metalheads I seem to face mostly disagreement, but if there is anything that will satisfy my "black metal urges" it is this record (or something by early Darkthrone). It was made at such a place and time that wholly impacts upon its structure, delivery and the entire finished product. If Burzum was recorded at any other point in time, or even with a different producer at the studio, or through a different guitar amp, it would not be the same record. That might sound a bit obvious, but it is more than that; what Burzum reflects is an idea, a vision so strongly held in belief by its creator that it eventually led to arson and later to murder. To know through these terrible acts that there was 100% belief and conviction in this music, in this way of life, makes the listening all the more powerful and dark.

Not that I personally advocate the burning of churches or stabbing your friend and record label boss in the face. And I don't sympathize with the views held by Burzum's bat-shit insane creator Varg Vikernes either. But, I am all about the music here, not politics, so if Varg's (possibly worrying) drive for Norwegian racial purity fuels him to continue creating such beautifully vicious and mood altering music, then so be it.