Boasting one of the most unattractive cover arts of all time (to go along with its consumer-friendly title),
Warfare's third full album, 1987's
Mayhem Fuckin' Mayhem, was pretty much all bark and no bite, and showed signs that the group's incredible momentum out of the gate had finally begun to wane. The recent departure of founding bassist Falken was handily resolved by having their old pal
Cronos from
Venom help out in the studio, but offensive time-wasters like the intro "Abortion Sequence" and the even "classier" "Projectile Vomit" were proof positive that the barrel's bottom was officially in the scraping. Likewise, rather lackluster numbers like "Generator," "Atomic Slut" (huh?), and a mundane take on
the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" fared no better, and sporadic highlights were saved for the slightly more well-conceived "Ebony Dreams," as well as the undeniably energetic "Machine Gun Breath" and "Murder on Melrose." Still even these better tunes paled in comparison to what had come before, and it was rather shocking when
Warfare got it together to muster a small recovery on the next year's
A Conflict of Hatred.