Warthur
Maniac's final album with Mayhem sees the band take on a much more nuanced approach to combining their experimental instincts with their transgressive black metal roots. Much more ably incorporating the band's more technical playing and ambitious song structures into their usual black metal frenzy, the lessons of Grand Declaration of War's failed experiments have clearly been learned, resulting in a much more satisfying brand of technical black metal than the previous offering.
On top of that, thanks to the band's aggressive playing and Maniac's incredible vocals in which he's practically choking with rage and disgust, it's more dramatic and evil-sounding than any of Mayhem's preceding albums. It's a shame that a lot of this is rather unmemorable; for me, the only bit where everything truly comes together is the title track. But on the other hand, it's a pretty good track.