Well aware this self-released, introductory demo isn't what people typically reach for when it comes to this band, and with good reason: when you've got such massive, genre-defining classics elsewhere in your catalogue, your other releases are gonna get over-shadowed. For me though, this is an essential color on the Mayhem palette, and I actually play this as often as really any of the others. Fully DIY - the band dubbed each tape and copied every insert by hand - this crude package of explosive, early black/death metal went on to be more influential than anyone could have imagined, in a blistering half-hour effectively laying the groundwork for the entire future Norwegian black metal scene. I distinctly remember reading Metalion's (of Slayer Mag) and Bård Eithun's ("Faust", formerly of Emperor and jail) takes on this now legendary tape and the affect it had on them as Norwegian teenagers (Norweenagers), and they both said more or less, ["it was just the most extreme thing you could possibly hear at the time. The primitivity of the music along with their press photos, where they had their hair in their faces and you couldn't even make out who they were, made such a huge impact. We'd heard Venom and Hellhammer, Bathory and Sodom, but this was dark, brutal music on another level entirely."]
I completely agree, and was equally blown away when I first heard this slab of noisy proto-black-death/extreme thrash/what do you even call this? I've heard there was a time when demos like this were all just thrash - the precursor stuff that now all gets lumped under the greater extreme metal umbrella - but I would love a proper name for it. And I don't mean like, obvious early death metal as it was evolving out of thrash, like the old Mantas/Death demos and Scream Bloody Gore, but releases like Posion's Into the Abyss, Bathory's The Return, Morbid's December Moon. Hell, even Possessed's Seven Churches and Celtic Frost's To Mega Therion fall into this category for me. Know what I'm talkin' about? Bands that were moving beyond thrash/speed metal, but weren't yet striving for the atmosphere of '90s-and-beyond black metal and also weren't pursuing guttural heaviness as an end unto itself like many of the buds on the sprouting death metal branch. I freaking love this kinda stuff. I've been lumping it all into first wave black metal for the last 25 years or so, and that works for me I guess, but if you think of something better please holler!
Jesus Christ anyway! Pure Fucking Armageddon! So, this is actually a compilation of two different rehearsal sessions, one per side, featuring the same set of (original) songs. Two of the three would go on to become classics of the band, and except for "Ghoul", can be found on other releases. Naturally, that happens to be my favorite old-school Mayhem song, but whatever. My favorite of the two is side A ("Fuck"), partly because it kicks off with the haunting "Voice of a Tortured Skull" intro, another rare example of a song recorded before guitarist Euronymous' murder that appears nowhere else in Mayhem's catalogue. It also features what are still the most incomprehensible, muffled death grunts I've ever heard on any release in over 25 years of listening to extreme metal. Seriously: sounds like dude put the entire microphone in his mouth, grunted a word here and there, called it a day. It's glorious. According to original drummer Manheim, these were performed by bassist Necrobutcher, although I've also seen sources stating that they were courtesy of Euronymous. Side B ("Off"), meanwhile, is instrumental and omits both "Voice of a Tortured Skull" and the "Black Metal (Total Death version)" Venom cover present on the A side, but the renditions of the three Mayhem songs proper somehow manage to come across as even more raw and aggressive than their counterparts.
All said, it really doesn't get much more chaos 'n' cavemen than this, and I absolutely mean that as a compliment. From the opening feedback hum of "Voice of a Tortured Skull" to the final, crashing chords of the second "Carnage", this bad boy seethes with an atmosphere of violence and, yes, mayhem. Indeed, with this demo and follow-up EP Deathcrush, Mayhem embodies the essence of their chosen moniker with sheer, sonic pandemonium more perfectly than on anything else they ever recorded. And that's to say nothing of the cover art: a grainy scan of a photo of Brazilian sculptor Guido Rocha's "O Cristo Torturado", the hyperrealism of the expression on the figure's face renders the entire work's grotesque absurdity suddenly and uncomfortably lifelike. I promise I'm not a simpleton (usually), but I admit that when I saw this for the first time around late '99 via a scan of the bootleg CD cover (included below the original tape insert above) on this awesome old Mayhem fanpage (link to Internet Archive pending!), I questioned what I was looking at and where the crap this picture could have been taken. I mean, my brain was telling me, "c'mon dude, what do you think happened? You think this band actually built a giant cross in their basement, kidnapped and starved this poor dude, and nailed him up for real?", but because of the extreme detail of the sculpture and its obscure reproduction, I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something genuinely nefarious going on here. Scared the shit outta me, made me incredibly uncomfortable, and I loved it.
This was all part of the experience of the old days, though: in an age before the Metal Archives, before YouTube, before streaming and social media and even Napster, it was hard to get many details for releases like this. It cloaked the whole affair in an aura of mystery, and we were all helpless to do naught but listen and stare in awestruck silence. It was the perfect agumentation to black metal's inherent, otherworldly mysticism. I was barely a teenager, and in my youthful naivete and exuberance, black and death metal held a very real sense of danger, and Mayhem came off as the single most dangerous of all. Do I know better now? Not really. Is that by choice? Maybe ;) We all need something to believe in, and I believe in black metal. I believe in Mayhem.
"Chainsaw Gutsfuck." My mind boggled as I read the title for the first time. It was one of the sickest, most extreme ideas I'd ever encountered in music, the visual it conjured so vivid that I felt queasy. Then,