Gran Declaration Of War (Mayhem)
What is it?... an experimental album by Mayhem, hated by most of their fans, why?...

Personally, I consider it the ultimate outburst of the prowess of Mayhem themselves in playing and inventing new sounds. You can immediately tell the vast array of techniques possessed by HellHammer (the band's drummer) when he plays simple pieces on the electronic drums and then shifts to the usual "tupà tupà"... or the exceptional voice of Maniac, who manages to blend clean, scream, and "sensual" whispers in the record.

You can also perceive the electronic experimentation present in the second part of the record with keyboards and "robotic" voices, truly amazing. The album talks about a hypothetical war between Christians and pagans, a war that, as understood from the LP's tracks, will never end; in fact, you can clearly hear that in the first part of the record (from the first to the 5th track) there are heavily distorted guitars and fast sounds, typical of black metal... then the fateful bomb explodes, followed by a deadly whistle (a genius move by Mayhem, I must say)... from that moment, the great Maniac starts with his whispers and HellHammer with the electronic drums, a post-war scenario perfectly represented.

Unforgettable and ingenious are tracks 11 and 12: as for the first, it starts with the phrase "I Remember The Future... A New Beginning Of Time" and leaves us with about 5 minutes of silence, almost inviting us to reflect on this wonderful phrase. The 12th track... what can I say... 7 seconds of pure silence, we ask ourselves... why 7 seconds? well, I don't know either.

End of the album: track 13, the guitars resume the melody of the first songs, as if to say that this war will never end, and evidently, it is so. A big thanks to Mayhem for these masterpieces, my rating for the album is a nice 5 out of 5. Congratulations once again, you hit the mark!!

Tracklist and Lyrics

01   A Grand Declaration of War (04:14)

02   In the Lies Where Upon You Lay (05:59)

In the century where man dies
We the huntress of the hollow hills
Must put ourselves above pity
Above self deception as law
We must be again as once were
We the soul of the earth
As reaping time descends
The sour gain of mercy withers
Into the night we must go into the darkest abyss
To a level of consciousness unknown to Christendom
We want life we crush the dream of heaven
As we bring the blade down one swift move
We are the chosen ones chosen by will to life
You life lairs crawl on you banded knees
As you finally die you will eventually have lost more
By not living by the sword than what you lose in death
Not by mercy by strength we end your pity lives
Not by spirit by flesh we awaken the beast within
Knee deep in your repulsive blood we march
Victorious by the power of our minds and bodies
Watch the twilight of your god
As you system cracks and all your life is dead priest
Take a look into our minds
Feel the pulse of omnipotent strength
Take a look into our souls
Feel your life drained of everything that was
Hear my words feel my wrath
Your death is sweet
All your life is dead priest
DEAD!!

03   A Time to Die (01:48)

04   View From Nihil, Part I (03:04)

05   View From Nihil, Part II (01:16)

06   A Bloodsword and a Colder Sun, Part I (00:33)

07   A Bloodsword and a Colder Sun, Part II (04:27)

08   Crystalized Pain in Deconstruction (04:09)

You have now entered from the womb In my reconstruction from deconstruction Where instruments of genetic distortion is me Abandon your pious ways You Between sacrifice and worms It will Take you lifetimes of dying to live again In my strata of war And you think that death is finally home Morphing in cell structures The future is still hidden Time bends like mirror light I am in your mind You are part of me As me in you, you in me

09   Completion in Science of Agony, Part I (09:44)

10   To Daimonion, Part I (03:25)

11   To Daimonion, Part II (04:52)

12   To Daimonion, Part III (00:07)

13   Completion in Science of Agony, Part II (02:14)

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