Music review: Mayhem - Grand Declaration of War (2000)

Alphabetic order does create some strange coincidences sometimes: here I am reviewing another 2000 album with a relatively similar atmosphere and daring to that previous one.

But unlike Maldoror which is known by approximately 2 people in the world, Mayhem is one of the biggest names in black metal's 40 years… so try to guess what the reception to such an experimental work was. That's right, consigned to the oubliettes of metal history!

While the knee-jerk backlash from traditional Mayhem fans was predictable, the modern disdain it continues to receive even on musically open-minded websites like RYM (average rating: 3.05/5) is perplexing.

When you consider that the preceding Wolf's Lair Abyss EP wasn't maligned at all, I can only deduce that what Grand Declaration of War added to that sound - the various "experimental" elements: small spoken word or ambient interludes, the dub track, etc… - was the crux of the problem.

Yet I still don't understand. Maybe something to do with the extreme departure from the previous legendary (thus emotionally charged) LP De mysteriis Dom Sathanas and its fanbase decidedly not open to such change; maybe Mayhem should have changed name at that point?

Feels really weird when you compare this circus with how easy it is for most Streetcleaner era Godflesh fans to rationally appraise the later stuff such as Love and Hate in Dub, Us and Them and more electronic side projects such as GOD, Techno Animal or Curse of the Golden Vampire.

My personal conclusion is that a large part of the "extreme metal" fanbase needs the "metal" part while the other is here for the "extreme" and likes or doesn't dislike metal.

Anyway, let's return to the album at hand. I personally really liked most of the aforementioned experimentation and thought they integrated well even if not seamlessly:

• The various spoken or almost rapped segments throughout and the whispered "A Bloodsword and a Colder Sun, Part I" were done well and of tasteful duration, though I do understand that Maniac's personalities (still much more serious than a Mike Patton, mind you) are an acquired taste and that the auctioneer/preacher tone in "View From Nihil, Part I" can annoy.
• The two dark ambient breaks in "View From Nihil, Part I" and "Completion in Science of Agony, Part I" were also timed to perfection and not superfluously inserted. I say keep 'em!
• Okay, I admit the Cynic-like alien vocoder thing in "Crystalized Pain in Deconstruction" and "To Daimonion" was a bad idea… but it's only a few jarring seconds!
• 5 minutes of silence after "To Daimonion" before the last real track? Yeah, don't do that, a few seconds would have been enough.

While I focused on the weird bits, don't forget that they're all encased in a solid block of the tastiest and coldest technical black metal ever crafted! And with a perfectly suited production to boot, like Thorns' but with an even more electronic/digital sub-zero dryness; if you prefer the 2018 remix, you have literally no taste worth mentioning, you smelly Philistine.

The few misses prevent me from giving it 10, but God knows I want to. It's just not perfect, but that's expected with such a large amount of risk-taking.