At the Gates – To Drink from the Night Itself (2018)

Music is a language, and utilizes formulas to communicate emotions to an audience.  This is the most basic understanding of the idea of music as a tool, but the mastery of the manipulation of human perception through the mathematics of musical language can only be effective if an artist has something substantial to say, and uses the medium of music as the vehicle to communicate that idea, rather than approaching this communication as if the method of expression is the message itself.  This is the disconnect we see as musicians “mature” and develop their craft as their passions slowly extinguish, and it is not surprising that the best releases using metal as a communicative tool are often released in a band’s initial releases, when they knew the least of how the musical language works.  This ignorance allows an immediacy that overwrought cynicism betrays, and it is here that the heart of metal thrives.  The education gained from elaborating on the language of music can enforce the initial artistic message when the understanding of human perception is developed, or it can suffocate the communicative process should the composer fixate on how the listener will react to the information presented.  The efforts of post-reunion At the Gates are mired in the latter type of composition, and To Drink from the Night Itself is the band’s most grievous offense.

(more…)

8 Comments

Tags: , , , , ,

Immortal Release Title Track of New Album “Northern Chaos Gods”

Cash grab alert!  After giving the classic board room “fuck you” to cornerstone musician Abbath, the corporate conglomerate of Demonaz and Horgh have secured the legal rights to the band name “Immortal” and are now positioned to promptly squeeze their fans to blindly buy music and merch advertised as that of a Norwegian black metal legend.  Although the pair have only played together on one album out of 12, they’re billing this as “the comeback of Immortal!” and have already gotten the infamously money-hungry Nuclear Blast records to set up the most overused rock n’ roll ponzi scheme.

Together, the pair have released a new song “Northern Chaos Gods,” the title/intro track of their first foray into commercialized rehash.  So how did the miraculous (fake?) recovery of Demonaz’s tendonitis work out?  Exactly how far into the waters of retro-rehash did the band wonder?  Have they evolved even the slightest as musicians or do they remain forever trapped in the 90’s? As trust fund life-dropouts living in the woods at the expense of their family might say:

“Let’s find out!”

(more…)

11 Comments

Tags: , , , , , ,

Dimmu Borgir – Eonian 2018

Dimmu Borgir are through and through, the most popular and most successful Norwegian metal band.  They are also #2 in bands that were at one point in their career black metal (falling just behind Cradle of Filth).  Since 1993, Shagrath and Silonez have clawed and breathed fire and went through dozens of musicians- some very well known- and marketed themselves as the “evil fantasy/RPG villian” better than any other band.  The brand, however obscure and seemingly non-conformist, resonated with millions as it’s two core musicians have turned their Hollywood Satanism gimmick into a big moneymaker for Nuclear Blast Records.
(more…)

9 Comments

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

Death Of War Metal Imminent!

For years, Nuclear War Now!’s forum has been the haven for life dropout D&D neckbeards searching for some form of friendship and community. But according to website tracking metrics, the site has seen a massive decline in it’s traffic over the past 6 months.  While viewership of metal sites can rise and fall unpredictably on metal sites, the above statistic should frighten anyone who cares about keeping their site relevant.  Sites with active forums should be doing much better than your the average blog-style metal site, so the numbers above show an unforgivable descent into irrelevancy.

But given that the site is predominantly frequented by war metal fans that have no regard for actual music, the crash in interest also proves something far bigger:  war metal, as a sub genre, is in its last days.

(more…)

57 Comments

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

Roman Salutes Are Too Evil For Watain

At the end of last year, we predicted that overt satanic lyrics and themes in metal would see their last days. There is no band that will accelerate this quicker than goofball circus act Watain, who market themselves as the evilest band in the world by LARPing as an American biker gang and staying in character through all media interactions. By doing so, they can act like they’re more “trve” than Dimmu Borgir and Dark Funeral despite being even more campy than both in their music and aesthetics.

But in the most cowardly of moves, the band kicked out the only credible member- former Dissection guitarist Set Teitan- because a picture of him doing a Nazi salute surfaced on the internet.  Though the band hides behind the lame excuse that “he left so we wouldn’t have to talk about politics,” it’s clear that the move was desperation on the part of Watain as they struggle to preserve their cash grab machine.  But regardless of whether lefties decide to shutdown Watain’s freak show carnival tour, the band will never survive this incident as the few supporters they had will likely realize that Watain are as timid as they come.

Make no mistake, I’m not at all defending what Set Teitan did, as all Hitler/Nazi LARPing is a corny stunt pulled by fat redneck rejects so they can feel extreme from their mom’s shed.  Instead, I’m celebrating as the Watain scam will finally lose all traction and the band will soon be homeless and broken in the streets.  Though they thought themselves to be instruments of the devil, they ultimately did a better job serving God by destroying the satanic metal scene from within.

(more…)

38 Comments

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

Fake And Gay: Nergal, Halford Want BM Supergroup

< Famed Judas Priest singer and gay fashion icon Rob Halford has been recently vocal about starting a black metal supergroup.  A longtime fan of the genre, Halford has named Ihsahn of Emperor and Nergal of Behmoth as potential collaborators, with the latter jumping at the opportunity to use his cartoon-black-metal brand to pocket even more mainstream metal dollars.  Unfortunately for Halford and anyone dumb enough to be duped into thinking something like this will be good, Nergal will not have much to offer in terms of a black metal supergroup as he has not played black metal since 1994's Sventevith despite masquerading around in corpse paint whenever it’s time to roll out the red carpet.

(more…)

17 Comments

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

BASED VARG CAN’T BE BOUGHT

Varg Vikernes is one of the rare musicians in death/black metal that won’t sell his soul for the dollar.  In a new video posted to his Thulean Perspective YouTube channel, Varg has revealed that some scumbag promoter has at one point offered over £ 300,000 for him to do a live Burzum show in London.  While many in black metal swore never to play live, almost everyone ranging from Darkthrone to Graveland has given in at some point.  But with the most notorious metal musician in the genre’s history, blood is thicker than water and that’s never been more prevalent than now.

(more…)

47 Comments

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

SAD HIPSTER WREST EVICTED FROM WAREHOUSE

Leviathan mainman and convicted domestic abuser Jeff Whitehead (a.k.a. Wrest) is being evicted from the Portland Oregon warehouse he maintained as a storefront for his Devout Rcrds label/record store and the “anarchist print shop” Eberhardt Printsop. Whitehead is the victim of allegedly evil capitalist landlords who want to commit the horrible act of leasing their hard earned property at market price, which happens to be double that of what Wrest can afford. Therefore, Wrest has tapped his neo-communist friend Neil Jameson (who is publicly living out a similar midlife crisis) to help beg for moneytarget=”_blank” rel=”nofollow external” from “the miserable collective workforce” a.k.a. you, the consumers.  Yes, you have read correctly- Wrest is so desperate to save a commercial “Anarchist clothing line” from having its free-market commerce shut down by other free market commerce that he has stooped to digital panhandling.target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow external”
(more…)

27 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