Nazism, Odinism, Freemasonhism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Nihilism... this band really has it all, doesn't it? Maybe Spear of Longinus are just too far over the sun-wheel for me, since the music on their latest 888-limited LP makes about as much sense as its cover art, and either I'm not adamantly enough into the "spiritual side" of National Socialism or I haven't expanded my consciousness to a sufficiently-elevated plane, because I can't even begin to grasp what the music or its philosophy is really trying to portray. The songs twist along in some strange and different extremes but I really see no logical progression or emotion as represented by the sound itself, and consequentially I'm having a very difficult time following or connecting with what they're trying to tell me. Thoughtfully it is just one long and overly-extravagant conflicting mess, as if trying to write a book but combining all of the different theories into one jumbled chapter.

However, in view of the fact that I'm not currently trying to levitate into an enlightened cosmic realm, I do have to remember that these beliefs are exclusive to the members, and they are entitled to follow whatever paths/forces they feel are guiding them (look at some of those classically over-the-top interviews from Rob Darken); after all, what really matters is the music here, and it should be intended to create perspectives within the listener of its own accord. The problem is, the music just comes up very, very short, and what's most depressing about that is I actually loved both the Nazi Occult Metal and Domini Satnasi demos from this band - of course back then, it wasn't so kvlt NS panzercraken warmongrel to jump onto the Nazi bandwagon, and the hype around Spear of Longinus wasn't completely and utterly overblown. Now that everyone has finally finished sucking on Scandinavia for a while, it's only cool to be NSBM, USBM, War Metal, or some stupid ten-word derivative of all that - what ever happened to just some good old black fucking metal?

And, what the hell happened to Spear of Longinus? I don't know if this digression began to take place during the Nada Brahma mcd, because I haven't been acquainted with that yet, but the completely evil and malevolent thrashing chaos has now been replaced by what really sounds to me like the more twangy, annoying sides of later Necromantia trying to cover Kreator songs. A good example is "Shiva Dancing": Some parts seem slow and doomish and muddled and are not too bad, but then they flip into these disgustingly happy riffing segments, and suddenly it's nothing but boring speech patterns, and none of these transitions really enhance the quality of TYONS at all. The band also should have never changed vocalists (look at the horribly weak "N.W.O.", which just sounds like a lame RAC song), and it's pretty depressing to see that a great once-trademark vibe has almost completely dissipated. Not everything here is too terrible, but these guys were great once.

Don't get me wrong with all this - it's pointless to hate bands or countries because they are suddenly getting a lot of acclaim, as that's bound to happen. The problems arise when that credit is unnecessary, and when you know that 99% of the people raving about these projects have never actually heard any of their releases at all. Spear of Longinus have degenerated into something confusing and vague, and that once powerful sound is about as flimsy as the ideology.

Now I want to track down the mcd and see where it all went wrong, and I'm not looking forward at all to hearing that cover of "Demoniac", which was supposedly disguised with no acclamation given to the original band whatsoever...

© 2002 hando