Altar of Perversion Intra Naos (2018)

Altar of Perversion return with Intra Naos, a post-black metal album taking this limited and confused style to its best, though still inefficient, results. We start by stating that this is not a black metal album because it is not a metal album in the first place, although its instrumentation, general use of imagery and screetched vocals may give us cause to think it is. Rather than being based on actual riffs to form phrases which themselves give rise to a sequence of flows [1], Intra Naos displays the shortcomings of what we have in the past characterized wallpaper black metal [2]. The overall experience of the album is one of somnolescence brought about by the lack of musical content in an extremely long recording full of ‘sounds’.
(more…)

13 Comments

Tags: , , , ,

/smr/ Sadistic Metal Reviews: Flavor of the Week Metal Pt 1: Black Metal

The ability to spot flavor of the week(/weak) trends in metal is a key element of elitism and will save you a load of embarrassment further down the road.  Both death metal and black metal have seen their share of torrid but temporary trends in the form of herd pleasing bastardizations that quickly spike in popularity and then evaporate from relevancy as their fans move on to something even worse (usually after a period of denial and/or clinging to a safe intermediary genre).  Crowdism is for losers but it’s heavily pushed in the metal scene and thus one must stay sharp to avoid it’s pitfalls.

Therefore in the interest of providing you, the reader,  with the knowledge of how to identify and properly dismantle future flavor of the week trends as they appear, this two part series SMR series will focus on a trend, a selected album from that defines it’s failings, and the worst offenders for each of these forgettable movements.  This week, we will focus on black metal’s most embarrassing waves of herd-fandom and sadistically dissect their unfortunate rise and much needed fall.

(more…)

17 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

/smr/ Sadistic Metal Reviews – Post Black Metal Eulogy (Part 2)

In post black metal, we saw riffs being declared null and void in favor of atmosphere.  Gone were the melodic harmonies of Iron Maiden and Dissection, the savage atonal decimation of Morbid Angel and Blasphemy, and the memorable rhythm and lead guitarwork of Slayer and Death.  All this came in favor of completely forgettable riffs and songs in favor of an overall spacey “transcendental” experience.  Aesthetically, post metal was the reflection of progressive societal values of the 2010s- the emassculation of men (all musicians were Nu Males), artwork made by douche bag art degree scumbags that live in ghettos, and tame, timid, “spiritual but not religious” lyrics that had not a shred of aggression or danger.

It didn’t have to be like this.  There could have been ways for bands to experiment with post rock/shoegaze elements and still maintain the foundation of a metal presentation, maintain metal aesthetics, and have attitude or edge.  But not a single band- NOT A SINGLE ONE- was capable of doing so, proving that the accusations of these bands/musicians not being metal were to be fully valid and accurate.

This is the absolute end of post black metal before it circles the drain of a shit-stained toilet and is flushed to the bowels of irrelevancy.  A finally eulogy to a genre that never should have happened.  The musicians will bleed out their parents money and then become homeless, get aids from a bad batch of heroin, and die a miserable death in an alleyway gutter where they should have been left to rot at birth.

(more…)

20 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

/smr/ Sadistic Metal Reviews: Post Black Eulogy (Part 1)

[Join DMU editor Brock Dorsey on the first of a two part massacre of the soy metal sub genre that has bastaradized black metal beyond the belief!  Also, this image is an actual cover from an actual post black metal album- you can’t make this stuff up!]

Post black metal was an embarrassing sub genre of soy metal.  Built upon a foundation of either screamo, pop punk, metalcore, math rock, shoegaze, or avant-garde and fused with the most minimal touches of black metal, post black metal was a flavor of the week(/weak) trend that lasted from around 2009 to 2014.  The genre name is misleading, however, as most bands only claimed to be metal and incorporated only slight touches of metal characteristics before abandoning them completely in future releases.  As indicated by its core standard bearers being dropped by labels, performing terribly in sales and Facebook likes, and being forgotten by fans, post black metal has finally passed away.  As we lay it to rest with one final cremation in the SMR fashion, let us learn from its failings as the future looks to more traditional forms of heavy metal  to restore a once proud genre.

First, we must understand metal history to understand how such an abomination could happen, as Post-black metal followed a number of flavor of the week black metal trends and bands.  The first of these, symphonic black metal, sent many fans of the original (true) black metal genre into a frenzy with their incorporation of gothic influences.  What was to come would be much worse, however, as the soy metal bands marketed as black metal would prove to be far more embarrassing than the Victorian campiness of Cradle of Filth or the industrial meddling of …And Oceans.  The next flavor of the week black metal trend was cleverly concealed in a cloak of static, but the hipsterisms of “depressive black metal” would soon be known to the world.  Time was not kind to the legacy of Xasthur and Leviathan, both of whom are now widely panned against the metal community, as where the thousands of “bedroom black metal” clones who polluted Myspace.  With many short lived flavor of the week trends (such as “Norsecore” and “Cascadian black metal”) and bands (Kult ov Azazel, Inquisition) in between, the soy metal- black metal hybird that was post black metal was the next successful marketing scheme to deceive young and retarded metal fans alike.

Performed mostly by wealthy but useless trust fund kinds from liberal cities, post black metal was to metal as emo was to rock music: feminine, tame, and a complete and utter bastardazation.  Thus, post metal was eventually abandoned by its former fans, spat on by the metal community, dropped by metal/rock record labels, and remembered poorly by music lovers.  Much like how the rent some of its musicians was eventually cut off from their parent’s bank roll, post metal was eventually told to stop leaching off the metal community so that the genre may maintain a shred of dignity.

Brace yourselves for an infernal evisceration unlike aynthing you’ve ever seen before, because in this edition of SMR, we won’t just be sadistically reviewing albums…

 

 

we’ll be sadistically reviewing careers.

 

(more…)

53 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Myrkur frontwoman receiving death threats

Myrkur promo pic

It doesn’t take much time to notice that we’re not big fans of Myrkur’s music, to the point that I tend to drop a link to my review of the act’s full length debut when something displeases me in modern black metal and its descendants. Other parts of the internet are rather more vitriolic in recent times; a few days ago, Myrkur’s Facebook page disabled private messages in response to a torrent of death threats. Amalie Bruun promptly followed this up by claiming the problem was American in origin.

myrkur drama

In a more hyperbolic world, the internet would explode. In ours, it still triggered many of Myrkur’s fans and critics alike; even now, metal enthusiasts worldwide are trying to score social points by writing editorials about how sending death threats is bad (m’kay), and near-battles are almost fought over an issue that probably shouldn’t have been publicized in the first place. You don’t want people making threats against you to feel like they’ve accomplished something of value, have you? The more cynical part of me thinks all this is going to do is build up further buzz, attention, and record sales for Myrkur, as if her upcoming tour alongside Behemoth wasn’t enough of an opportunity. Still, responding to Myrkurphobia with xenophobia is not the answer we’re looking for here at DMU.

44 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Abigail Williams – The Accuser (2015)

The accuser

I had high hopes for The Accuser… of a sort. I was expecting an ungainly, melodramatic symphonic black metal ala Dimmu Borgir. Unfortunately, Dimmu Borgir hasn’t released an album for Abigail Williams to ape in over five years!  Cue the necessary stylistic shift, and the dashing of my admittedly dubious hopes, founded on information about this band that was similarly out of date. The Accuser is one of those indie-darling post-black metal albums, and while it’s usually not as blatant about its weepy, depressive influences as Deafheaven or Myrkur (whom I always seem to mention in pairs), it’s still a pretty flat and bland experience.

Abigail Williams’ latest actually pulls on a fairly wide mixture of post-black approaches, although they are generally united by a consistent production. The production team decided to portray this band as just fuzzy and indistinct enough to possibly pass as ‘true’ for a moment, but not enough that the intended audience would complain about a garbled aesthetic. There’s also the occasional awkward high pitched scream strewn in the mix, but it’s an otherwise standard sound. Within this, Abigail Williams explores such things as jangling consonant guitar leads, lengthy drone sections, start-stop riffing, and so forth. Now, there is nothing innately anything about musical techniques, and this is especially the case on this album, where the songwriting is haphazard at best. The difficulty that you often run into with this sort of musical language is that it’s difficult to build off these ideas in any way, whether it be the standard theme and development shtick we advocate around here, a more ambient approach, or much of anything, really. In general, Abigail Williams has a serious problem gluing things together and seemingly tries to hide it with minor stylistic shifts within and between tracks; regardless of their intent they don’t manage to pull off such subterfuge.

For whatever small reasons, I don’t find this album quite as annoying as many of its genre contemporaries. It still is, however, a boring listen that does little of interest with the hand of tricks it’s taken.

3 Comments

Tags: , , , , , ,

Empire Auriga – Ascending the Solar Throne

empire_auriga-ascending_the_solar_throne

American ambient-metal band Empire Auriga’s second album Ascending the Solar Throne expands the style pioneered by Burzum through the “Decrepitude” I& II tracks from “anti-black metal” album Filosofem. Ascending the Solar Throne comprises songs that are cold, distant, and simplistic. These spacious compositions rely on the repetition of arpeggiated guitars providing a base for reverb-drenched and piercing treble guitars to shine through, along with an anguished yet faint vocal accompaniment. Although the band forgoes the use of percussion entirely, tempi are regular and recursive song segments are identifiable. Synths or heavy guitar effects lightly sprinkle the mix almost as decoration, enhancing the presentation of the album but not interfering with its texture.

Expressing the desolation of technological existence, Empire Auriga weaves a journey through an inner experience of an individual separated from the external world of perception through pain, before coming to rest in a more peaceful place. Gradually moving from aggressive and dissonant chords in the beginning towards a calmer and safer mild major key conclusion, Ascending the Solar Throne is unfortunately unable to complete the journey which is hinted at in the opening tracks. Instead of turning the nihilism present into existential achievement, the album instead retreats into the safe and vacuous womb which afflicts most post-modern music.

Rather than confronting the question of one’s existence directly, as Filosofem did so elegantly, the choice instead is made to ignore it. This disappointment aside, Ascending the Solar Throne is an interesting album which attempts something rare in contemporary music: an artistic voyage. For that reason, it deserves consideration and acknowledgment where it succeeds, but ultimately the listener will be left slightly hollow and bereft.

Ascending the Solar Throne will be released on August 19th via Moribund Records.

5 Comments

Tags: , ,

Classic reviews:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z