Well aware this self-released, introductory demo isn't what people typically reach for when it comes to this band: when you've got such massive, genre-defining classics elsewhere in your catalogue, your "lesser" releases tend to get overlooked. For me though, this is an essential color on the Mayhem palette, and I 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, and in a blistering half-hour effectively laid the groundwork for the entire future Norwegian black metal scene. I distinctly remember reading about the effects this legendary tape had on Jon Kristiansen ("Metalion", formerly of Slayer Mag) and Bård Eithun ("Faust", formerly of Emperor and jail) as Norwegian teenagers (Norweenagers), and they both said the same thing: ["It was just the most extreme thing you could possibly hear at the time, and their press photos, with long, black hair obscuring their identities, made such a huge impact. There was nothing else like this going in Norwway. We'd heard Venom and Hellhammer, Bathory and Sodom, but this was dark, brutal music on another level entirely."]
Heard, and I was equally blown away when I first encountered this slab of noisy proto-black-death/extreme thrash/what do you even call this? I've heard there was a time when releases 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, stuff like the old Mantas/Death demos and Scream Bloody Gore, but releases like Into the Abyss, The Return......, December Moon, Obsessed by Cruelty. Hell, even Seven Churches and To Mega Therion fall into this category for me. Know what I'm talkin' about? Releases that had moved beyond thrash/speed metal, but weren't yet striving for the frosty atmosphere of '90s-and-beyond black metal yet also weren't pursuing guttural heaviness as an end unto itself like many of the buds sprouting on the death metal branch. I freaking love this shit. I've been lumping it all into first wave black metal for the last 25 years or so, and that works for me, but if you have something better, holler at me.
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 (deathlike?) silence. It was the perfect augmentation 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, with Mayhem 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.
I managed to track down a physical copy of the CD press in late '99/early '00 from some bizarre bedroom distro in Puerto Rico, along
Depending on your interpretation, this is the first Norwegian black metal release proper (i.e., not including demos). Granted, you really can't say that it was cast in the mold of the sonic template that would be laid down over the following 7 or 8 years, but it effectively kickstarted the scene that would birth it.
November, 1999. "Chainsaw Gutsfuck." Lord Dying's Mayhem Angelfire page (strictly dedicated to "the True Mayhem 1984-1994"). My mind boggled as I read the title for the first time, and I looked over both shoulders to make sure my parents weren't lurking out of sight in clandestine, parental observation. It was one of the sickest, most extreme ideas I'd ever encountered, the visual it conjured so vivid and surreal that I felt queasy. I pressed play, and what followed was the most extreme, most brutal, literally heaviest music I'd ever heard in my life. It wasn't massively downtuned, it wasn't inhumanly fast, it was just 3 notes on impossibly distorted guitar and bass, but they were played with more sinister, misanthropic conviction than anything I'd yet heard or even imagined.
I didn't know music could sound like this.