DMDS and Wolf's Lair Abyss, unless you like a bunch of nontraditional/experimental/avant-garde stuff or shit production. Deathcrush is good, but for a newcomer to extreme metal, it would be a little overpowering due to the production and blend of death/black.

Ordo Ad Chao is what cavemen with the ability to see the future and the pointlessness of their species would produce if given instruments and instruction on how to play them. Dark, grim, slow, and every track's either about the world getting destroyed or the universe getting destroyed.

I also bet that if you're a nihilist who hates Phil Collins, you'll love the lyric 'nemesis of genesis'

I forgot to mention that I got into black metal through Ordo Ad Chao, I got a CD of HammerWorld magazine with the track Deconsecrate (and a couple of other bands' tracks of course). I'm a black metal fan since then.

Agreed though.

What the fuck does his nick and geographical ubication have to do with whether he's a tool or not? The one who reek's of stupidity here is you, my friend.[/quote]

The same that yours does. Yuggoth. Tool.

The same that yours does. Yuggoth. Tool.[/quote]

I agree, this guy is an idiot.

A great summation of their two best studio releases!
I find that Wolf's Lair Abyss acts as a great segue between them as well.

Burzum is very entry-level. Filosofem and Hvis Lyset Tar Oss are not hard to get into at all. The overall presentation is very digestible (and actually fairly catchy). In fact, it's an excellent place to start because Burzum influenced so many other bands. I HIGHLY recommend these two albums to anyone wanting to get into black metal.

On the other hand, Dimmu isn't entry-level. Dimmu is just bad. Dimmu should never be listened to under any circumstance.

Not really. No other album released by a Norwegian band around that time sounded anything like it (with the exception of maybe some of the Thorns demos, ha ha). There was actually a thread on here a while back about how unique an album it is, with very few albums in metal sounding at all similar. To this day, no one's truly captured what Mayhem did with that one...genuine "black" magic.

I can maybe see what you're saying if your statement refers to the "scene" and the whole Second Wave thing. It certainly was one of the defining albums of the movement, but I wouldn't necessarily call it the defining album. A lot of interesting and noteworthy stuff was going on in Norway and other places back then.

As for a good entry-level Mayhem album, I'd go along with everyone who mentioned the straightforward and blistering Wolf's Lair Abyss EP. Many don't care for Maniac's Donald-Duck-on-crack vocals, but I've always been a fan of his style. He's a very powerful vocalist, for one thing...you can really hear the force he puts into his screams, especially on this album. Even some who don't care for the fact that Mayhem continued without Euronymous mention Wolf's Lair Abyss as worth a listen.

De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas is completely essential, though, and should at least be heard by everyone interested in black metal. If you listen to it and don't care for Attila's vocals, fear not, for there is a recording of the album just for you: From the Darkest Past. The production is much rougher but still sounds excellent, and the bass is HEAVY in the mix. It's a good time and I highly recommend it.

Those vocals really take some getting used to...

To me, De Mysteriis is the only great album by Mayhem. Deathcrush is entertaining but not very invoking, Wolf's Lair Abyss is good but falls short of De Mysteriis' level, every album after that is quite mediocre. Chimera is quite entertaining, but it's not particularly good. Ordo Ad Chao is only good due to Attila's performance, which is laudable.

Though Attila sang both De Mysteriis and Ordo Ad Chao, his performances are quite different. The fact that you like one hardly means you will necessarily like both.

Really? Wow cheers, I hadn't heard anything about this

Marduk!

Mayhem has only 1 really good album, being TMDS.

And what's TMDS?

Lol, DMDS, De Mysteriis... you get it.

Ordo has an interesting atmosphere, but in the end it's nothing really spectacular as De Mysteriis is.

I did forget to mention several important points, though:

1. It only features seven of the eight tracks on De Mysteriis... (it omits "From the Dark Past", ironically enough).

2. It's a bootleg so you won't see it archived here.

3. It's for people who don't like Attila's vocals because it's entirely instrumental.

I'd recommend going for the newer digipak version as it features several bonus tracks (the studio recording of Dead singing "Freezing Moon" is incredible and alone worth the price of the disc).

I enjoy all of their albums, but De Mysteriis is easily the best.

This thread has been an interesting read. Everyone is in agreement about DMDS but apart from that there is no real consensus at all. Goes to show how diverse the band is really.

My personal favourites are DMDS (obviously) and Ordo ad Chao. I think the latter is a masterpiece, so atmospheric and at times really quite unnerving. That's largely down to the vocals but instrumentally it's very interesting. It creates the most dystopian chaotic soundscape I think I've ever heard.

I like Chimera too, although the only reason I picked it up is because I loved the cover, one of my favourite album covers!

and also DE MYSTERIIS... of course! IMHO both albums absolutely cannot be missed

Grand Declaration of War is easily the most interesting thing they've ever done. Powerful, fascinating and brilliant. Ordo Ad Chao is a close second. These albums are droning visions into a future of oblivion.

Regarding their studio full lengths, all of them except Grand Declaration of War, each one for a different mood.

It all depends on what your ears prefer. What other bands do you like? Blut aus nord? Deathspell Omega? Then definitely go for "Ordo ad chao". Darkthrone? Immortal? "De Mysteriis dom Sathanas" would be the obvious choice. Lamb of God? GTFO! No, really. I would personally recommend either De mysteriis or Chimera, since they're my personal favorites. I've always had a hard time getting into the "Wolf's Lair Abyss" EP, mostly because Maniac (their vocalist at the time) is sounding like Donald Duck throwing up rocketfuel for the 22 minutes he participates (excluding the intro). Also, "Grand declaration of war" has some interesting moments, but they're way too few to be worth spending your time on the whole disc.

"De Mysteriis..." is leagues above anything else the band has released.

Yeah, so I got Transilvanian Hunger and Chimera, and now I'm listening to other BM stuff, so feel free to stop posting. Sorry that I've kinda not paid any attention to this thread for half a year. Most of the dumbass threads I made at that time have grown out of control anyways. So, this thread is pretty much dead.

De Mysteriis was my entry into black metal in the mid 90's. Still my favorite. After that, I would say Wolfs Lair Abyss, Chimaira (however its spelled), then Ordo Ad Chao. I enjoyed GDOW, I dig Deathcrush, in doses. lol. Live In Liepzig is awesome because of Dead on vocals. Hell, I enjoy all of them for different reasons. But those first ones are what immediately come to mind whenever a discussion about Mayhem comes up.

Entry level stuff my ass. The album still has yet to be topped by many of the bands it inspired, nothing Mgla, Taake, Behexen, WIITR, Deathspell Omega, or any overhyped newer band even comes close to what the guys accomplished on their swansong De mysteriis Dom Sathanas. I can understand the criticism of the band being one off, and I can even sort of understand how trendy it is for guys to come out of the wood work to say "It wasn't that important of an album" or "Attila's vocals suck", but what the band accomplished and what other Norwegian bands accomplished in those days gained a firm footing for what would be black metal. I love a lot of newer black metal in many of its shapes and forms, but nothing comes close to Transilvanian Hunger, Under the sign of hell, Dmds, or Asper Hiems Symfonia.

he said this was his favorite album of them, I think you misread his post.

I said overhyped new bands (see other examples;)I just listed them as a big name band not an overhyped one. I adore Behexen and their albums are some of my favorite black metal albums outside of the obvious mentions in my post.

chimera took me a while to understand but now its probably my favorite mayhem album. Wolfs lair Abyss comes secend, then DMDS.

The word "entry level" would be using the wrong words. One can say those classic albums can be called albums that cannot be missed or "must hear albums" but I would not call them "entry level" or "easy listening." Of course, the classics were fresh and thrilling the first time they were heard by the audience and as a result anything that came afterwards will naturally and unconsciously be categorized as something that has either been done before and as a result the audience would be nostalgic and go back to say Transilvanian Hunger or DMDS or inevitably compare the cult classics to newer legends. As a result there will exist this distance of opinions about the timelessness of Darkthrone and Mayhem and elevation of musical ideas of say giants like Enslaved and Deathspell Omega.


EDIT: Chimera is a tremendous album. All Mayhem is.

I would recommend beginning with Deathcrush. It's always good to start with a band's debut album as it introduces their personality, vision, and approach, and sets the stage for their future albums. It also makes understanding their artistic development easier as one explores their catalog, as one divine the reasons for their artistic changes by looking at where they came from, as well as making sense of their evolution through the context of metal's development as a whole. In this case, Deathcrush, though considered the beginning of second wave black metal, is firmly rooted in the sound of the first wave: bass heavy guitar tone, slow to midtempo compositions built around repeated riffs, and chromatic/descending chord progressions. Sounding like a more Nordicized Celtic Frost, it helps clarify the stylistic link between first and second wave black metal like few other albums. They would later adopt a higher pitch guitar tone and faster tempos, melding in with the second wave scene they spawned, a development that makes sense as a veteran band adapting to stylistic currents they themselves set in motion.

I don't consider Deathcrush the beginning of the second wave. It's the first time I hear someone claim that. Just because Mayhem are considered the originators it doesn't mean their whole discography is defining. Otherwise we should also call Darkthrone's debut black metal. I consider Deathcrush a death metal album that can be called first wave black metal, and if so, it's one of the defining "albums" (man it's 18 minutes ) of the first wave. The second wave began sometime between Blood Fire Death and A Blaze In The Northern Sky, I thought that was obvious.

So anyway, it's Deathcrush or DMDS for me. Third place of studio records is Chimera, but it comes nowhere near the awesomeness of the only album with Dead on vocals -> Live In Leipzig.

De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas it's the only really outstanding album of Mayhem. They never reached that kind of atmosphere, never had the riffs and overall excellent songwriting and production in 1 another album. I think that Euro AND Snorre made it the timeless classic it is. Everything before DMDS sounds ok but the production its too terrible and the songs are not really that well written and everything after DMDS it's just average bm with some very awful numbers in between.

I go further saying that, unless Mayhem recruit Snorre again as guitarist, they'll never release another worthy album.

But reached others. DMDS is occult, Chimera is nihilistic, OAC is their darkest album (and GDoW was never about atmosphere).

too bad the music isn't any good. I'll give you 'fascinating' in regards to GDoW but that isn't enough.

Anyway, DMDS = the only great Mayhem album but by all means check out 'Deathcrush' because it's decent and historically important. Ordo sucks, stop being blinded (deafened) by the return of Atilla and somewhat raw production.

I've thought the very same thing ever since Blasphemer left the band. Mayhem NEED Snorre! He's the one person who can save them!

"[quote="inhumanist"]I don't consider Deathcrush the beginning of the second wave. It's the first time I hear someone claim that. Just because Mayhem are considered the originators it doesn't mean their whole discography is defining. Otherwise we should also call Darkthrone's debut black metal. I consider Deathcrush a death metal album that can be called first wave black metal, and if so, it's one of the defining "albums" (man it's 18 minutes ) of the first wave. "


I don't consider it death metal at all, and this is the first time I've heard someone claim that. The vocal style, lyrical content, and aesthetics are clearly black metal, as is the primitive musicianship and songwriting approach, built as it is around repetitive open strummed riffs and shrieked vocals. It lacks the thrash technique and song structure of first wave death metal, as well as the sonic signatures: post-Kerry King guitar solos, guttural vocals, palm muted thrash segments, etc.