Released back in 1987, before lineup changes led to a chain of events that would make them infamous, Mayhem’s debut EP Deathcrush achieved notoriety on the strength of its music alone. It’s 18 minutes of metal that’s as primal and abrasive as it gets. With neither black or death metal codified as separate musical styles yet, Deathcrush is a mercurial mix of both. The rumbling riffs and crude lyrics (“her guts were boiling out of her butt”) lean towards the fledgling death genre. But the necro production, bulldozer guitar tones and punk mentality follow in the footsteps of early Bathory, Hellhammer, Sodom et al: a course that would eventually to lead to the birth of black metal in the band’s native Norway. The howling, stubbed-toe vocals of Maniac, the harsh Quorthon-like vocals of Messiah and the spooky unease created by the avant-garde instrumentals Silvester Anfang and Weird (Manheim) all add to the palpable sense of darkness and evil that make Deathcrush a crucial evolutionary step in the black metal story. Pure Fucking Armageddon from start to finish. And the band was just getting started…
HEAVY METAL OVERLOAD 
Beautiful piece of vinyl. I love the splatter.
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It was an old Record Store Day edition I think? But I picked it up afterwards.
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I definitely hear the black and death metal on this track. Somehow, they passed me by in 1987 but they won’t be left out when I get to posting about that year.
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I’d say waaay more people worked back to this than knew it at the time.
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I need some more Mayhem in my Monday morning. Death rush is gonna soundtrack my work today! Fuck yeah!
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*Deathcrush. Bloody predictive text. Death Rush is a cool name too. Maybe the name for my metal band. Bring it!
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That’s the spirit! Pretty sure Robert Palmer covered ‘Necrolust’ live once.
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He was a big fan.
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A slightly ‘muso’ question inspired by this – which metal band or bands first used detuned guitars to any great extent? ’87 seems quite early to me, but that’s probably totally wrong… I could Google it but wondered if you had a take.
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Not got a take so shooting off the top of my head… Black Sabbath were tuning down to C# from their third album. Budgie were pretty sludgy. A lot of Motley Crue was tuned down a whole step I think?
Melvins and Kings X were quite notable Drop D bands in the 80s. By 87 you’ve got the first death metal bands popping up and most of them were tuning down full steps or more. By the 90s bands like Carcass were down at B.
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Doom bands would have been tuning low early on too. Trouble and Death Row/Pentagram in the early/mid 80s were pretty heavy that way.
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Well, that’s pretty damn complete overview, thanks! I guess ’87 was pretty late in the day then. Interesting that Carcass went down to a low B – I need to check them out again – but surely the world record is Yes’s Trevor Rabin who tuned down to a low A on the title track of ‘Big Generator’…
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Further proof that Yes is the ultimate. Hope Mr 1537 is reading this! Good old Trev.
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I once went by the online name Darth Quorthon because I thought it sounded good.
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It’s got a ring to it
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I thought Lucas missed out there.
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