Mayhem - Daemon (Metalcore)

Mayhem decided that melody's for fags and complexity's for nerds, and so delivered an album of paint-by-numbers sub-Pantera metal retardation.

The songs begin and end the same way: 2 note riffs that sound like bowel movement noises are "highlighted" by an effete guitar lead while Hellhammer, the only competent musician left at this point, attempts to inject complexity by unnecessarily playing up the role of his drum kit in an otherwise boring snoozefest of chugging and breakdowns. The vocals sound more along the lines of the "spooky" narrations Mudvayne or Slipknot would do, so if this is a "nu" approach to the Mayhem sound, at least they're finally admitting they just want to be the angsty version of Korn.

This album is, both musically and artistically, an even worse abomination than the already peak fecal Esoteric Warfare. Teloch and Ghul do not know how to write convincing black metal riffs, and there's only so much Hellhammer can do to cover up their inherent talentlessness and taste for the nu-meddle.

This is nothing more than aesthetics used to dress up what's essentially a groove/mallcore album in spirit for the purpose of pandering to the lifestyle demands of undiscerning, two-digit IQ underground metal fans by using the name of a once good black metal band. With their image of Jack Daniels t-shirt wearing drunkards - further evidencing the Pantera derived trailer park wigger ethos - it should be no surprise that "The True Mayhem [sic]" is all genre pandering through vacuous posing first, and music second.

Daemon is an insipid mess that raises the question of why anyone would listen to this sub-Dimmu Borgir fodder when there's so much better music out there. Avoid this if you have any taste whatsoever. "The True Mayhem" is worth neither your time nor money.

Back to the band Mayhem.