Album of the week: Mayhem - Daemon

 

To the idea behind the album of the week, go here. 

After listening to a somewhat lush album last week, I had the appetite (fuelled by currently reading the excellent Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult) for something a little more harsh and sinister this week. I know some - but not all of Mayhem's albums - so I decided to try their latest, widely acclaimed album. Compared to the last album I listened to by them - the bizzare, dark and undwieldy "Ordo ad Chao", "Daemon" is a lot more accessible, the structures of the songs more easily recognizable. On the whole, I found it to be a fine black metal album, nicely alternating (often even withing songs) between furiously fast songs and slower, more doom-like ones, all pretty digestable due to the very clean production. The standout tracks I consider to be all utterly excellt black metal classics; the rest are (at least to my ears) serviceable songs which don't quite match the quality of the tracks mentioned below.

Standout tracks: "Bad Blood", "Malum" and "Aeon Daemonium"