Metal Hammer 9/10 - UK - Apr 2007

After a couple of distinctly average releases, it's a relief to report that the original Scandinavian blasphemers have delivered a truly colossal album in 'Ordo Ab Chao'. Mayhem, once more with singer Attila Csihar, have managed the near-impossible – a balance of searing speed and atmospheric, experimental evil. Old-school black metal-heads will love the scratchy guitars and distorted drum-rolls of 'Anti' and 'Wall Of Water', which could have come straight from 1994's 'De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas' (arguably the nearest the black metal scene has to a 'Reign In Blood'). More demanding listeners will dive into 'Illuminate Eliminate' and 'Psychic Horns', the two impossibly dark epics which make up the core of the album. At ten and seven minutes long respectively, these two songs alone raise the bar for modern black metal – making 'Ordo Ab Chao' the genre's best album in years.

Sonic Seducer - Germany - Apr 2007

Ein Wasserfall mitten im einsamen Wald, die Vögel zwitschern dem Frühling entgegen. Doch was die Urgesteine norwegischen Black Metals in diesem Idyll rund um die Molla-Studios zusammenzimmerten, erstickt jede Lebensfreude augenblicklich im Keim. Zwei Jahre bastelte man am Weltuntergangsszenario, denn nichts anderes beschreibt "Ordo Ad Chao", zurück ins Chaos, in den Staub soll die unnütze Kreatur namens Mensch, dahingerafft von einer "Wall Of Water", die auch gleich als zweiter Track über die Erde rollt. Angetrieben von Hellhammers wüsten, teilweise sehr reduzierten und experimentellen Drumming und unterstützt von nicht minder verwirrenden Riffs und progressiven Gitarrenwahn Blasphemers, entstand ein Werk, dass die fiese Bösartigkeit und Düsternis, wie auch Kälte der frühen 90er einfängt, gleichzeitig aber dem Fortschritt durch hervorragende Produktion, bessere Instrumental-Leistung, sowie mutigere, aufgelöste Songstrukturen Tribut zollt. Der wiedergewonnene Frontmann Attila Csihar greift von tierischen Schreien, heiseren Geifern bis dunklen Clean-Vokals alles ab, was die Stimmbänder an angstvollem Geräusch hergeben. Verderbnis und Entfremdung sind Konzept und Ideologie, noch mehr Negativität das Ziel. Entlang der Geschichte des Untergangs, bewegt sich das Album musikalisch von Heavy Melodic in chaotischen Freestyle, hyperaktives Beckenspiel, spitze Schreie, minimales Einhalten und ohrenbetäubendes Getrümmer – jeder folgt seinen eigenen Regeln, das ist Gesetz. Das ist Black Metal.

Imhotep 6/6 - Norway - Apr 2007

Phase one – dead people
I see dead people.
I watch them in fear. Horrified, I am horrified.
The hands of the dead people are reaching for me.
Grabbing, touching, striking, tearing me apart.
Will I wake from this nightmare?
Is it Blasphemer's insanity that makes me ill? Harmony, enter! For in this world of chaos there is no harmony. Not in the music. Not in the songs. Not in emotions.
Is it Hellhammer's madness that makes me ill? Impossible rhythms, frightening sickness in the pulse. There is no pulse. Can someone absorb the structure? Yes, in places. But in other fractions, not at all.
It is Necrobutcher's lunacy that makes me ill? His haunted bass-lines, growling, thundering. Driving us mad? Yes, mad.
Is it Atilla's psychosis that makes me ill? His insane screams, twisted and deformed. Anti-human! The voice of the dead, tormenting our souls for all eternity.
I am sure I will never awake from this nightmare. The dead people have surrounded me. The play the music if the haunted souls. They play black metal.
Black metal without any subcategory. Just pure black metal.

Phase two – disharmony
This is probably the album that reeks of black metal. There is not a moment of hope. There's nothing that makes me smile. There are insane parts all over the place, the music is twisted and takes incredibly turns in every track. Blasphemer has written his most disharmonic work to date. But in some insane way there is a certain pattern in there. You have to give it time to let loose the beast within. "Ordo Ad Chao" is not a piece of music! It is a journey that leads you to Hell. It may give you goosebumps. But it just as well may give you shivering moments of displeasure. The production is low-fi. The sound is ugly. Atilla's vocals are all over the place in all its madness. But it all makes sense. They play black metal. Black metal without any subcategory. Just pure black metal.

Phase three – harmony
This is something that, after more than 20 spins, makes me feel like shit. I am normally the happy average guy having a pretty comfortable life without too many confrontations. I like it this way. But from time to time I feel that my life is perhaps a bit too average. You know, the usual 9-5 drill that includes work, sleeping, TV, music, conversations, travelling, training, etc. I don't think my life makes a different to the world. Viewing life in that perspective makes me realize that I need something destructive that makes me feel bad in order to balance my life. Believe it or not, but Mayhem's "Ordo Ad Chao" is one of those elements that gives me harmony in life, despite its completely disharmonic approach and that they play black metal. Black metal without any subcategory. Just pure black metal.

Phase four – one of the dead
I can now join the dead. After all these years, with great black metal albums of all those categories, I don't think I need any other black metal albums. It's ok with symphonic (i.e. Limbonic Art has returned), necro or whatsoever category, but if we think of black metal as nothing more than black metal, I think Mayhem has created the perfect album. The songs are varied, though not too varied. Atilla's haunted voices drives me insane from time to time. Take a listen at the second minute of "Illuminate Eliminate". Atilla doesn't sing the vocals, he IS the vocals. And then Blasphemer has mixed a sound that increases all the time, like a dentist's drill, that gets on your nerves. Add to this HellHammer's progressive touch. And you're in Hell. "Ordo Ad Chao" is not a black metal album, it is a black metal journey. My search is complete. I don't need another black metal album! I have got Mayhem, and they play black metal. Black metal without any subcategory. Just pure black metal.

Phase five – tormented
In the already named track, Atilla comes up with a scream after 5.30 minutes that makes me even more ill than everything else on the whole album. These 25 seconds are Hell to me. If you ever see me grin, just imagine that grin times 666...

Phase six six six – love
I love this album. It gives me everything. It makes me happy, though not smiling. It makes my life harmonic, despite the lack of harmony within the creature. It has turned into a drug, and I need more of it. I was sceptic the first few spins, but now that it has grown into me I am sold. I love this album... ...in a twisted way that I cannot really explain. It has to be experienced. Mayhem has to be experienced. But I do also hate this album!