Mayhem - Deathcrush (Black Metal)

This EP Deathcrush shows us where Mayhem would be, as a band, had Dead and Hellhammer not taken over in 1988, and Varg Vikernes not joined the band as a bassist and songwriter in 1991. Playing "ev1l" Motörhead with a shitty Venom cover. They certainly would have never released the genre-defining masterpiece De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, had Mayhem continued down the Deathcrush route.

And while Mayhem eventually got down to releasing nu-meddle bowel movement noise albums - see Esoteric Warfare and Daemon - that doesn't in any way excuse the abject worthlessness of Deathcrush. The instrumentation is pretty absolute shit all around, except for Maniac's vocals which manage to be somewhat unique in a sea of total generic boredom. The song structures are very simplistic, as every track on Deathcrush follows a strict verse-chorus-verse structure for the entire album. There is not an iota of creativity to be found on this EP.

The lyrics might be the second most atrocious part about this album, after the music. For example: "Bleed down to the fucking core / You're going down for fucking more / Screw your slimy guts / Driving me fucking nuts". That's from "Chainsaw Gutsfuck". While I don't normally point out weak lyrics, Deathcrush is so full of them that I really didn't have a choice in the matter. The overuse of "fucking" just shows how creatively bankrupt Mayhem were whilst writing these tracks. Also, rhyming "guts" with "nuts" is very kindergarten and totally inappropriate in a black metal song.

There are more lyrical shitters, like using the adjective slimy to describe a grave. That makes as much sense as the line "My brain is driving me insane" from "Necrolust". Apparently Euronymous tried very hard to be the most "2Xtreeem" possible with his lyrical imbecility, but the whole childish Cannibal Corpse/Carcass gore fetish was never "heavy" nor is it particularly metal, and never will be. It is, however, symptomatic of a band that has absolutely nothing of value to say (the only band managing to pull it off convincingly being Infester).

In the end, it's a good thing that Mayhem started piking dead animal heads on posts, throwing raw meat into the crowd, killing each other (and themselves) for "trve kvlt" points, and other various shenanigans, because there's no way the band could have drawn any interest via such worthless vapidity as the musical output shown on Deathcrush. Avoid this brain-dead album.

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