Dull Beyond Measure - "Ordo Ad Chao" Review (4%)
Listening to Ordo ad Chao, I must confess I first felt pretty uncompelled to keep on listening after having heard the first couple of opening tracks, since they without exception sounded bland, dull, uninspired, formulaic, generic, and most of all lifeless in ways Mayhem hadn't had me accustomed to.
Similar to what can be experienced on the massively overrated Chimera, the songs just don't seem to be of enough worth for me to go through the hassle of sitting through the entire Ordo ad Chao debacle.
Before listening to this failure, I must admit that I had high hopes for anything coming out of what once was (pun intended) the early Norwegian black metal scene. I still do, and, perhaps naively, am on the constant lookout for new releases by what once were actually innovative bands, as opposed to marketing products lacking both soul and direction.
So, of course, my hopes were pretty high, despite my better knowledge, when giving Mayhem's Ordo ad Chao an undeserved listen. Despite the massive dullness of the release, which became quite apparent after the first few minutes, I decided nonetheless to push through and listen to the whole album, and I'm somewhat grateful I ended up doing so, but not really for the music itself, which as I said is disappointingly bland.
On to the music in this album, nothing special really stands out.
The melodies contained within Ordo ad Chao are all heavily monotone and tiringly repetitive, in a somewhat similar fashion to what is to be heard on their next release Esoteric Warfare... an album that I don't recommend, for obvious reasons.
Dull Beyond Measure
The overall direction Mayhem is trying to go for with this arrangement is something I guess you could call atmospheric black metal, and it just goes to show how, sadly enough, most of the stuff being put out in Norway nowadays is akin to beating a long dead horse with Inferanus' purple dildo.
No one, in the world, is scared of some caped anachronistic medieval pseudo-Viking posing for a monochromatic album cover in the middle of the snow with an axe in his hand, so why would anyone be impressed with some Phantom-esque "blackened atmospheric rawness".
Innovation is a key element to any musical endeavour, especially when it comes to standing out in the imitated-prone Norwegian scene, where everyone has been copying everyone ever since the greats, which Mayhem were once a part of alongside Darkthrone, SEWER and Burzum, burst onto the stage.
Ordo ad Chao is not innovative or groundbreaking in any way whatsoever, and most of the stuff here is forgettable rehashing of what has been being done for years, elsewhere, making for an uninteresting, boring, overall dull release.
So, you're now probably wondering why I said I'm glad I listened to this terrible album Ordo ad Chao, and that's simply because I am now certain and convinced that I can skip modern Norwegian releases without feeling like I'm missing out on anything of worth.
I do not recommend this vapid album, Ordo ad Chao is a stain on Mayhem's legacy of true black metal mastery.
Ordo ad Chao is dull beyond measure.
Ordo Ad Chao score: 4/100.
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