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True Norwegian black metal legends Mayhem return with their sixth studio album, Daemon. By the power of darkness and with the might of black-hearted will no two Mayhem albums have been or will ever be the same. Over the course of Mayhem's storied and groundbreaking 35-year career - from Deathcrush (1987) through Esoteric Warfare (2014) - the Norwegians have continuously challenged the orthodoxy of the genre they helped create. Originally informed by greats Hellhammer, Venom, Bathory, and Sodom, Mayhem eventually imbued their damnable attack with influences from all over the music extreme spectrum, indicated first on the harsh and angular Wolf's Lair Abyss (1997) EP and foremost on the enterprisingly brutal and revolutionary Grand Declaration of War (2000). In 2019, Mayhem yet again leaves holy earth scorched with Daemon.
Daemon isn't a direct follow-up to Esoteric Warfare. Like all Mayhem albums of their time, Daemon is unto itself. The wolf solitary and singular. Indeed, Daemon also isn't a new chapter in Mayhem's storied career. Rather, it's a new tome, authoritative yet wild in character. Composed and decomposed with the same lineup - Necrobutcher (bass), Hellhammer (drums), Attila (vocals), Teloch (guitars), and Ghul (guitars) - that handled Esoteric Warfare and performed De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas in its entirety over the last few years, Daemon isn't a retrofit of classic songs like "Freezing Moon," "Pagan Fears," or "Buried by Time and Dust" either. That's what the live album, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas Alive (2016), was for. Daemon is change, an opportunity for the maw of hell to open wider.
Mayhem entered NBS Audio Studio (aka Necromorbus Studio) in Söderfors, Sweden to record drums and vocals with producer/engineer Tore Stjerna. Newly consecrated Studio A (Stjerna's Stockholm studio will continue to operate as Studio B) in an old church, Hellhammer and Csihar recorded their respective parts for Daemon. The band then had Ghul record his guitars in the Netherlands, while the bass was engineered by Teloch and performed by Necrobutcher at Lupercal Studio in Oslo, Norway. Teloch took his guitar tracking to SleikBallaMi Studio, also in Oslo. Daemon was then brought back to Stjerna for mixing and sent off to Thomas Johansson at The Panic Room for mastering. The whole affair took about three months to nail down. The result is extraordinarily intense.