BravePicks 2019 - MAYHEM's Daemon #5
December 27, 2019, 4 years ago
As Dark Angel famously said, “Time Does Not Heal”, but it certainly moves fast and here we are again, staring at our annual BravePicks countdown where the devout scribes at BraveWords get to stand up and shout! 2019, yet another banner year for extreme music, whether you call it heavy metal or not. We do, cuz we wear it on our sleeves! So the votes are in and the compiling is complete! It's time to crown the winners and put the noose around the bands that truly let us down.
So who will be our #1? You’ll find out as we count down the BravePick Of 2019 each day in December!
Everybody has an opinion and it’s time for ours! And stay tuned in January for the writers’ individual Top 20s (new studio albums ONLY), Top 5 Brave Embarrassments (a fan favorite!), Top 3 Concerts, What/Who Needs To Stop In 2019? and Metal Predictions For 2020. All will be showcased come the New Year!
So let’s commence the good, bad and ugly of 2019! First up, the Top 30 releases of 2019!
BravePicks 2019
5) MAYHEM – Daemon (Century Media)
The Norwegian blasphemers returned with a vengeance with Daemon! Their first new oaths since 2014’s Esoteric Warfare shows a band reclaiming the torrid spirits from their legendary debut De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. Vocalist Attila Csihar breathes hellfire upon these hymns with enraging screams and howls and throat induced rusty roars. His unpredictability sets the tone for Daemon as unrelenting guitars and drums provide the magnetic blackness listeners have been begging for. The songwriting is dynamic and full of sadistic intent and the throwback to the debut is assured and worthy. Mayhem stakes its claim on the #5 position of our countdown.
“Mayhem will always be Mayhem,” says guitarist/songwriter Teloch (aka Morten Bergeton Iversen). “If we put the genre game aside a bit, no one else sounds like Mayhem. Even when De Mysteriis came out, it was not at first considered to be a black metal album, if my memory serves me right. Tricky to label this band. Metal would be the most fitting; it’s not pure black metal, in my opinion. Not sure it has ever been actually, despite what the general opinion is. People can call it whatever they want. If it’s black metal to them, then fine. We don’t really care. To me, it’s important to keep some sort of black metal vibe at least.”
BravePicks 2019 Top 30
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5) MAYHEM - Daemon (Century Media)
6) HAUNT - If Icarus Could Fly (Shadow Kingdom)
7) CHILDREN OF BODOM - Hexed (Nuclear Blast)
8) FLOTSAM AND JETSAM - The End Of Chaos (AFM)
9) RIOT CITY - Burn The Night
10) THE LORD WEIRD SLOUGH FEG - New Organon (Cruz Del Sur)
11) WEDNESDAY 13 - Necrophaze (Nuclear Blast)
12) NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THE DEAD THINK - No One Knows What The Dead Think (Willowtip)
13) OVERKILL - The Wings Of War (Nuclear Blast)
14) CANDLEMASS - The Door To Doom (Napalm)
15) MICHAEL SCHENKER FEST - Revelation (Nuclear Blast)
16) QUEENSRŸCHE - The Verdict (Century Media)
17) SABATON - The Great War (Nuclear Blast)
18) WHITESNAKE - Flesh & Blood (Frontiers)
19) GATECREEPER - Deserted (Relapse)
20) GRAND MAGUS - Wolf God (Nuclear Blast)
21) DESTRUCTION - Born To Perish (Nuclear Blast)
22) TEXAS HIPPIE COALITION - High In The Saddle (eOne)
23) EXHUMED - Horror (Relapse)
24) DEATH ANGEL - Humanicide (Nuclear Blast)
25) BEAST IN BLACK - From Hell With Love (Nuclear Blast)
26) D-A-D - A Prayer For The Loud (AFM)
27) IDLE HANDS - Mana (Eisenwald)
28) HELL FIRE - Mania (Riding Easy)
29) SOILWORK - Verkligheten (Nuclear Blast)
30) MEMORIAM – Requiem For Mankind (Nuclear Blast)
