
9 January 2024 – The Princess Theatre, Brisbane – words by Alessandro Ambrosi – pictures by Bec Harbour
The time has come to attend the celebration for MAYHEM’s four decades.
The Norwegian black metal titans have had an impressive forty year career which has had their tormented and cursed moments from church burnings to murder and suicide.
Supporting the Norwegians tonight are HOST.
As their Bandcamp page states “Host, the dark noise project known for its experimental, engulfing output”. As a total new listener I’m quite curious to hear what the Lismore trio has to offer. The stage is minimal with a standing drumkit and N.J. instruments. The half hour show feels more like performing art than a concert. Droning noises and distorted, at times almost imperceptible vocals, bring the audience in what feels like a battlefield before war is about to start with N.J. and N.R. dictating the time and L.O.N.S. adding voice, breath and chaos.



Host – Princess Theatre – photos by Bec Harbour
Their style is not for everyone but there are enough people in the audience to give the feeling of an almost full pit. If dark and oppressive is what you’re looking for please check them out and you won’t be disappointed.
The lights dimmed and the back of the stage lit up, a certain silence fell.
Vintage images of the band appeared on the screen, with both Euronymous and Dead as protagonists as well as images of concerts with pig heads and photos that have now become a fundamental part of a certain metal imagery.



Mayhem – Princess Theatre – photos by Bec Harbour
Hellammer arrives on stage with a nod towards the audience, the graphics of Daemon take the place of the black and white and the concert begins with ‘Malum’, one of the best from the band’s latest album. The setlist is structured to retrace the entire history of Mayhem, picking two songs per album, which will be re-proposed in reverse chronological order, with the usual central part dedicated to De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, and the finale to re-propose the immediately preceding era, that of Deathcrush.
If the last two sections, objectively more captivating and ‘popular’, are a bit predictable, given the live performances of the semi-recent period of Mayhem, the first part makes the concert interesting even for those who have already seen them several times, if only because some songs have certainly been played less in the history of the Norwegians.



Mayhem – Princess Theatre – photos by Bec Harbour
As the evening progresses, the graphics change based on the album on offer, and we realize how much Mayhem have actually dared and experimented with different solutions in some moments of their show.
The journey takes us back along the path of a ‘normalized’ or usual black metal band, like today’s, which has instead, previously, flirted with a certain electronic, with industrial, with even challenging moments like in ‘Illuminate Eliminate’, the only extract from Ordo Ad Chao.
Slowly descending into the 90’s next is CHIMERA performing the aforementioned title track then ‘My Death’. A convincing ‘Views Form Nihil’, this one from GRAND DECLARATION OF WAR precedes the tracks from WOLF’S LAIR ABYSS still exuding malignity with ‘Ancient Skin’ and ‘Symbols Of Bloodswords’ supported by a visual celebration of other characters who have made the band shine in their own way like Maniac and Blasphemer.
Attila in particular emanates ,as always, an aura of evil studied very well in the theatricality and in the vocals delivery.



Mayhem – Princess Theatre – photos by Bec Harbour
The images on the backdrop keep going at the end of the first half and a church bell ring opens the second part dedicated to the seminal DE MYSTERIIS DOM SATHANAS, a symbol of nineties black metal, from which four songs will be taken, with the title track, ‘Freezing Moon’, ‘Life Eternal’ (with the lyrics of the song written by hand, which scrolled together with the photos of ‘Pelle’ Yngve Ohlin aka Dead) and lastly, to close the curtain on this phase ‘Funeral Fog’ played by the band, but not sung by Attila: the vocal part was in fact entrusted to a recording of Dead, while videos of the singer are projected on the screen.
After a break the lights change tone, become warm, the screen is tinged with the red of the historic EP Deathcrush,with the severed hands that stand out on the cover, while the obsessive rhythm of ‘Silvester Anfang’ takes care of marking the ‘four’ for the start of the eponymous track.
The result is devastating, and generally this final section never disappoints, even if the two hours of concert are starting to make themselves felt. The songs in this third part are quite obvious, with ‘Necrolust’, ‘Chainsaw Gutsfuck’, ‘Carnage’ and ‘Pure Fucking Armageddon’ as great classics of an entire movement rather than a genre.



Mayhem – Princess Theatre – photos by Bec Harbour
The concert ends leaving a strong sense of nostalgia and it must be said that the performance was undoubtedly intense, with Attila who always seems to emerge triumphant from some fetid infernal hole and the musicians who pounded like blacksmiths for two hours straight, without any mercy.
Of course, many years have passed, and the spirit cannot necessarily be the same, but the ability to evoke discomfort and morbidity seemed still present and alive, triumphant in the celebration of all these years of horrid infamies