MAYHEM: Ordo Ad Chao Vinyl LP

There are bands who define black metal, and then there is Mayhem, who basically set fire to the genre, watched it burn, and then rebuilt it from the ash with their bare hands. Ordo Ad Chao is not their most notorious record, but it might be their most important.

Released in 2007 with Attila Csihar back on vocals, this one threw out the production rulebook entirely. It sounds like it was recorded inside a collapsed mine, which is not a criticism. The guitars have no mid-range, the drums are cavernous and wrong, and Attila sounds like he crawled out of a ritual that nobody else survived. Where other black metal records were getting cleaner and more elaborate, Ordo Ad Chao went the other way, deep into chaos and dissonance. For a band whose history includes church burnings, a murder and a suicide, making an album this genuinely unsettling in 2007 was no small thing. This is one of the heaviest, most atmospheric records in the Norwegian black metal canon, full stop.

Format: Vinyl LP. Various reissues exist. Check sleeve for pressing details. Fans of: Darkthrone, Deathspell Omega, Watain, Blut Aus Nord.