Mayhem "Chimera" CD

Those who absurdly accused "Grand Declaration Of War" of too much experimentation or some other kind of drifting beyond black metal standards, could easily check the "Chimera". Compared to the "Grand...", the discussed material is much more normal and extreme-oriented in its "pure" form, without avant-garde additions. Knowing me, it would be a great excuse to criticize and acknowledge it as a cheap copy of the style of "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas"... but not in this case! Well, the Norwegians, rejecting the experiments from "Grand..." once again managed to create a piece of brilliant and - paradoxically - clearly different from their previous cds of black metal music.
The novelties on "Chimera" are therefore dosed with much less momentum than on "Grand...", except that the music boasts much more extreme paces (one of the fastest in Mayhem's discography) and generally greater massacration (again, a matter of paces), on the other side, it surprises with clarity of sound, skillful matching of slower tempos, incredible ingenuity of Blasphemer and Hellhammer and disturbing, dehumanized atmosphere. The "technicality" and attention to details can also be pleasing as never before; in the case of "Chimera" all this fits together very naturally and without displacing the extreme side of this music. Best of all, the third Mayhem album is in no way inferior to the previous two - it's inventive and brilliantly composed enough.
I have already mentioned the fact that they gave up the avant-garde and showed their class once again, but there was no mention of the "hitness" and extremely easy assimilation of this material (probably most of all). In this respect, every track on "Chimera" deserves a mention, both songs with blasts like "You Must Fall", "Rape Humanity With Pride" or "Whore", but also the slower ones like "Impious Devious Leper Lord", "Slaughter Of Dreams" or "Dark Night Of The Soul" (this one great speeds up). So there are absolutely no weaker songs on the "Chimera". All of them show perfectly that black metal can be technical, and at the same time, extreme and thrilling in all its glory.

Live video: 

Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...