This is Mayhem

Norwegian media reported last month that one-time Mayhem
bassist Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes—also known for his
one-man Burzum project—had been paroled from prison after serving
almost 16 years of a 21-year sentence for his role in the murder of
founding guitarist/vocalist Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth and the
arson of several churches.

His release coincides with Mayhem’s first US tour in a decade. But
like many of the musicians who have played on this notorious black
metal band’s recordings, he will not be making an appearance on our
Hawthorne Boulevard. (Not that he’d be invited back into the
band—or even allowed into our country.) In fact, only one of the
band’s founding members, bassist Jørn “Necrobutcher”
Stubberud—notably absent from the band’s most recent LP, 2007’s
Ordo Ad Chao—will play tonight.

Other fixtures who have left Mayhem (in one way or another):
corpse-paint visionary Per Yngve “Dead” Ohlin, the vocalist originally
pegged for landmark black-speed album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (suicide); singer Sven Erik “Maniac” Kristiansen (stage fright,
cutting, alcoholism); and, Rune “Blasphemer” Eriksen, who wrote and
played all guitar and bass on Ordo Ad Chao (presumed
sanity).

So why, then, is this bastardized act now hawking the partially
self-released Life Eternal EP, a five-song CD lifted from an
early ’90s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas rough-mix demo tape? The
effort varies slightly from its wolfish LP cousin, boasting only padded
DVD-style packaging and Vikernes’ newly pronounced bass patterns as a
reason to downgrade. (His levels were long rumored to have been reduced
on the LP out of respect for Aarseth’s family because the album was
released after the 1993 murder.)

Mayhem could not be reached for comment. And to be fair, Life
Eternal also features the spectacularly fast,
to-the-end-of-the-world-and-back drumming of Jan Axel “Hellhammer”
Blomberg and the ghoulish, artful hell-belch of vocalist Attila Csihar
(both in the Portland show’s lineup), for which the LP is still
unrivaled. What the EP doesn’t feature is a true purpose.