Album Review : Mayhem - Atavistic Black Disorder/Kommando (2021)
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Mayhem is one of my favorite bands. For black metal fans, it’s the equivalent of saying you’re really into Led Zeppelin or Guns N’ Roses. They were just that important and popular at one point in time. Unlike these rock icons that burned bright and flamed out, Mayhem’s been making intense and challenging music for over thirty years. The boogeymen of extreme metal have suffered through many lineup changes over the years and just kept reinventing themselves.
They have a new EP out called Atavistic Black Disorder/Kommando and… they kind of did it again? I don’t think anyone could’ve expected this.
So, Atavistic Black Disorder/Kommando is a two-sided project, like its name implies. The way old vinyls or split records had two sides. One contains three black metal songs, including the two bonus songs from the album Daemon. The other contains four covers of classic punk rock songs. Is this weird? Absolutely. Does it work? Not quite. But Atavistic Black Disorder/Kommando is basically a passion project you can listen to for free online.
So it’s kind of cool anyway?
The only original song on Atavistic Black Disorder/Kommando is Voces Ab Alta, a somewhat by-the-numbers Mayhem song. It’s got the tremolo picking intro, the unrelenting blast beats, the occult lyrics, etc. It’s not bad, but if an AI wrote a Mayhem song it would sound like it. It doesn’t have a powerful sense of identity like Black Glass Communion (originally a bonus song from Daemon), which kind of accidentally blows it out the water right after.
Black Glass Communion features some of the crunchiest guitar riffs ever written by Teloch and Ghul and a passionate performance from Attila Csihar, who throws in some of his coolest Gregorian chants. The production is also heavier, more lush. The other B side Everlasting Dying Flame is perhaps the weakest song on this EP and highlights a weird problem Mayhem had over the last decade. They’re trying way too hard to stay on brand.
Up until Ordo Ad Chao in 2007, Mayhem were a borderline avant garde black metal band. They were never afraid to experiment and get freaky. Say what you want about Grand Declaration of War, but it was new and weird and it opened the door for many new bands to try and outdo them. I think the problem is rooted in the fact they don’t have a visionary songwriter anymore to help them challenge their own boundaries since Blasphemer left the band.
About these punk rock covers…
This is pretty much what they are. The most straightforward punk rock covers you can imagine. We’re as far from Darkthrone-reimagining-themselves-as-blackened-crust-punks territory as we can get here. There’s not a lot of Mayhem in these. It’s about five guys having a blast, playing songs that obviously have meaning for them, which is cool. I personally do not care one minute about punk rock, but it’s fun to see Mayhem try something so wildly different.
My favorite was the cover of Commando by The Ramones because I dig their suburban brand of nihilism. Only Death, which is a song from a band I do not know, also had this frigid agression to it. Maniac makes an appearance doing his best Jello Biafra impersonation on Dead Kennedy’s Hellnation, which I thought was cool. I have a soft spot for his unpredictability. Old school frontman Messiah also provides backing vocals for the song and performs Commando.
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So, what should we do of this puzzling EP? It’s not my favorite Mayhem release by any means, but it’s kind of cool that they decided to share it with us. The band members were obviously passionate about the idea of playing punk songs and their energy is somwhat infectious. Unless you’re a Mayhem completist, no one is really forcing you to purchase Atavistic Black Disorder/Kommando, so you can just enjoy it online while you wait for the next album. Don’t hate.
