Colorful and dynamic, Adversarial’s brand of nu-black metal has many compelling moments and even long stretches of song, but overall falls prey to a combination of high-level meandering in search of an “atmosphere” while loose reign is given to the drums to fill in gaps with flare without any substantiation. In their defense, most of the instruments seem to work in a very directed manner, a direct result of the simplicity of the music, although this integration and interplay is not as clearly done or focused on a full musical-conceptual balance like Kaeck’s Stormkult.
Ultimately, the most compelling aspect of Death, Endless Nothing and the Black Knife of Nihilism is its delicious production. Everything is both pristine in the dirty and powerful way that violent death and black metal are mandated to be heard. Unfortunately, when one pays close attention to the development of whole songs, it is easy to notice that the songwriting does not rise above the level of, say, Peruan black metal band Goat Semen. In fact, given that Adversarial are more prone to that modern atmospheric meandering that is vaguely reminiscent of post-modern chord-hanging, I would rather listen to the forward moving and still related riff progressions of Goat Semen, although these also, in the end, do not amount to a clear picture of anything except the violence they produce outright.
While these will delight metal listeners that lie on the heavy and consistent pleasure-seeking spectrum, those in search of a balanced unification of images and respectable music construction will find nothing here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmnfZPjw5j8
Tags: 2015, Adversarial, Black Metal, Death Endless Nothing and the Black Knife of Nihilism, death metal, goat semen, post-metal, underground
Christ, for a sec I thought that read, “Death, Endless Nothing and the Black Wife”! I was like…
Better or worse than Diocletian?
Almost anything is better than Diocletian.
This one certainly has really good moments, but it forgets itself.
The song posted here earlier really disappointed me. I loved All Idols Fall Before The Hammer despite the bad snare sound and thought it had some really good and original riffs. The new song sounded like so much of the “orthodox” stuff doing the rounds with aimless, melody-draining dissonant chords riding over the band’s fast attack. I’ll still give this one a listen but I’m not holding out much hope. It’s almost like once-decent bands sit on their hands for a few years between albums and then decide en masse to jump onto whatever’s trending at the moment.