There are certain songs and movies that make the viewer think, Man, I wish I was on drugs. This would sound pretty cool while tripping. At the same time, there are the other kind of songs and movies, that make the viewer think, Thank God I’m not on drugs. This would be Hell while tripping. And it should be unsurprising to The Pit’s readers that “Voces Ab Alta,” the new visualizer video from Norwegian black metal pioneers Mayhem, is one of the latter.
This isn’t to say that the artistry behind Mayhem’s new video isn’t beautiful. The animation therein was created by acclaimed extreme metal artist Costin Chioreanu, whose work has a very old-world folkishness to it. The way Costin’s illustrations are animated is also very compelling, with the video’s series of slow, expanding pan-outs. But that’s exactly why fans shouldn’t watch this one after eating a big ol’ bag of mushrooms, or breaking out those acid sugar cubes you have in the freezer. There’s a softly-flowing evil here, a kind of childish, boogeyman-ish quality to the way in which these morbid images expand, that’ll make someone on a hallucinogen run screaming, or shit themselves, or run screaming while shitting themselves so that a trail of shit is left zig-zagging across the lawn. And who wants that?
Check out “Voces Ab Alta” below:
“Voces Ab Alta” comes from Mayhem upcoming Atavistic Black Disorder/Kommando EP, which drops July 9th via Century Media Records. The EP provided Mayhem with the opportunity to record some unusual cover tracks, including songs by Dead Kennedys and Ramones.
“When we recorded the drums for Daemon, we suddenly had three to four days of extra studio time,” said bassist Necrobutcher. “Hellhammer recorded his stuff faster than we had planned, so we picked out a bunch of covers to record, just to have something for later use. It turns out that we made the right move, as we didn’t want to start on new songs until the Daemon album tour was finished.”
Atavistic Black Disorder/Kommando is available for preorder. Check out the full tracklisting and cover art below.
- Voces Ab Alta
- Black Glass Communion
- Everlasting Dying Flame
- In Defense Of Our Future (Discharge cover)
- Hellnation (Dead Kennedys cover)
- Only Death (Rudimentary Peni cover)
- Commando (Ramones cover)
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Words by Chris Krovatin
