Enslaved and Wardruna members collaborate in Skjuggsjá

Metal flavored post-rock (modern Enslaved) and ambient folk oriented music (Wardruna) are both established things. I am not so sure the fusion of such in Skjuggsjá, a side project album featuring Ivar Bjørnson and Einar Selvik, is as common. Skjuggsjá does seem to feature all the pretension inherent in either, and was apparently written and first performed for the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the Norwegian constitution of 1814. This studio recording will release on March 11th; the released single does not seem to emphasis the potential metal instrumentation of such a project, although scattered live clips suggest some effort towards this end on other tracks.

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Sadistic Metal Reviews – Loute Vire Edition (End of 2015 Series)

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Popularity contests are good for one thing only: determining the degree of decadence the mentality of a certain group. Given the state of sedation and apathy of the general public, it is no surprise that this list shows the contemptible character and inability for self-criticism and assessment the average man is aflicted with. Also, like anything mainstream, very little here is actually metal, even in spirit. Loute Vire especializes in democracy, bringing the average stupidity back to the average person, feeding them their own filth.

Iron Maiden - The Book Of Souls (2015)

1. Iron Maiden – The Book of Souls
Free us from Glam-rhythm Maiden. Character-wise, this nu mid-paced Iron Maiden is a combination of eighties hair metal, power-doom-epic metal in the vein of Candlemass but with the emphasis of catchy Murican posturing. Structurally, it manages to be both formulaic and pointless in its overextension, basically taking the worst from both worlds. Iron Maiden have become the kings of posturing, and even if butthurt fans complain, one must say that this downfall was evident ever since Somewhere in Time and was pretty evident with Seventh Son of the Seventh Son. Stick to 1985’s Live After Death as a synthesis of the band’s golden era and you’ll be fine. Stop feeding Steve Harris’ ego machine.

Ghost

2. Ghost – Meliora
Caricature music that disguises carnival thinking by providing a steady, unchanging background. Ghost know how to fool the enemy, the audience is hooked, distracted by fireworks to the right and to the left, without realizing they are paying for an empty but colorful cardboard box. Ghost, master deceivers, everything is so in your face, that the decadent masses love the fake but safe entertainment that ironic bullshit provides. Surely this would also be released in vinyl format, that’s what hipsters do. They need to keep piling up appearances and hip products. The best thing you can do with one of these is break it and use the shards to cut the throats of Ghost fans.

Tribulation

3. Tribulation – The Children of the Night
This hard rock-ish outfit is probably what Opeth would sound like if they focused on their weirdo rock side instead of jumping around genres without musical justifications or proper transitions, or if Ghost took itself seriously and had a little talent. Tribulation’s may be the best album on this list, as pop and hook-based as it is, it retains the basic decency of proper music in its continuity and coherence. The focus is completely on the guitar lines. Unfortunately, songs do lapse as they are overstretched for the false ‘complexity’ appearance that hipsters, high school nerds and college SJWs like. Worthy of from radio airtime, not more, no less.

(Editor’s note: You know a band is bad when it gets double-SMR‘ed.)

Amorphis-Under-the-Red-Cloud

4. Amorphis – Under the Red Cloud
I may not have been paying enough attention but, when did this originally Finnish death metal band turn into American high school rock balladers with queer Scandinavian leads? (Editor’s note: It began in 1994.) Amorphis seems to have abandoned all sense of pride for a couple of more greens. This is selling out clearly exemplified. Bands, this is what you should not do. Fans, you will only find plastic here.

Enslaved-In-Times

5. Enslaved – In Times
Progressive rock for those who lack the subtlety for progressive rock. Black metal for those too soft to brave the intellectual challenge of not being a sheep. This is long-winded pop and rock artificially styled to appear complex for insecure posers.

Coma_Ecliptic_cover_art_by_Between_the_Buried_and_Me

6. Between the Buried and Me – Coma Ecliptic
Dream Theater meets Avenged Sevenfold with a strong Pink Floyd influence. How do these guys manage to sound exactly the same again yet be so vague in content? All semblance of continuity here, apart from tonality, is only maintained at some cerebral level in the imagination of the band or of the fans who will like any catchy & ‘complex’ turd that distracts them from their monotonous lives. The music itself is a disparaged parade of funny moments.

high on fire - luminifierous

7. High on Fire – Luminiferous
Speed metal on the outside, borish NWOBHM on the inside. This gets old quick and leaves no mark. Like many others, it tries to be an updated, more tough version of Motorhead, and use the old excuse of just “wanting to play good ole rock”. Forgettably redneckish.

queensryche - condition human

8. Queensrÿche – Condition Hüman
It is difficult not to laugh when listening to this macho-man bullshit for young, white posers. However bombastically pop and girly these songs are, they flow well. On the downside, the band never develops or resolves songs, meaning they are only good as groove and hook inducing. Radio garbage.

Paradise-Lost-–-The-Plague-Within-01

9. Paradise Lost – The Plague Within
Boring as ever, or perhaps more than ever, Paradise Lost is still trying to make the album they almost achieve with their earliest music. Never rising above potential mediocrity, this band is a collection of dull moments peppered with pleasing leads. An unexpected heir to this hooky combination of candy and nutrition-less filler is Sylosis. Anyone looking for a casual hit may dig into some of the tracks here, otherwise, refer to classic underground so-called doom metal.

TDOLT_Cover

10. Intronaut – The Direction of Last Things
Alternating angsty with pretty boy vocals, the mark of immaturity. Groove-based music without a clear thematic line, the mark of an empty mind. So, this is basically unthinking, puerile nonsense for people who want to “feel” metal but do not actually like metal. Destroy not only any copies of this but the factories and corporate buildings in charge of producing this mindless heap of catchy garbage.

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Enslaved – In Times (2015)

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Watching the greats fall is always painful. But watching Darkthrone go from Transilvanian Hunger to The Underground Resistance is not half as painful as seeing how Enslaved defile their name in a pseudo-prog mainstream pop metal album like In Times after knowing they were capable of something like Vikingligr Veldi. Even without drawing a comparison, the contrast-oriented sequence of scenes posited by the modern metal of In Times as an excuse for music is in itself enough to throw this out the window.

The sort of failure that an album like this represents is one of the most pervasive maladies that afflicts modern metal, but it was born long before the metal itself developed. The pseudo-prog musical fallacy of either stitching unrelated sections with disparate characters and contrasting ideas  or merely repeating riffs and similar ideas with no subtlety was born as soon as progressive rock became a “thing” and paper-thin rednecks like Camel and Rush were confused with the real-deal bands like Yes and King Crimson which require much more subtlety to appreciate. This is a sickness that metal has to overcome if it is to have an artistic future and if the absorption into mainstream pop music is to be staved off.

This absorption is always taking place, and there are always pockets of resistance. Enslaved is showing us the most dangerous example of this watering down. It is the most dangerous because it gives the superficial appearance of attaining greater complexity. But it is a trivial complexity. It is no real musical complexity as it only consists in stacking elements that sound appealing in passing much in the way Michael’s Pink Frothy AIDS constructs for the intellectual, sensitive hipsters. This music is painful to listen to for any discerning listener looking for coherence and meaning in art and should be avoided by any fan or musician looking for excellence except as an example of a common pitfall of the pseudo-intellectual metal movement.

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