Sadistic Metal Reviews 12-05-13

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What are Sadistic Metal Reviews? If you treat heavy metal like a form of art or culture, it suddenly reveals its inner depth. Labels want you to see the surface only. To separate the two, we must be brutally honest. Look for the occasional gem in the sands of sonic feces.

cemetary-phantasmaCemetary – Phantasma

Claiming to be tired of the “dungeons and dragons metal stuff”, Cemetary mainman Mathias Lodmalm stops trying to rip off Tiamat and Sisters of Mercy for Nuclear Blast fan boiz and unleashes his last pose. If his progressively more AIDS-influenced output didn’t clue you in, this last Cemetary album feels like a garage band project done for the purpose of emulating Nine Inch Nails or Skinny Puppy. It shows how interchangeable most poppy industrial is, so I can see something like this album succeeding on the radio, but as luck would have it, this is just another faceless electronica product in a sea of many. The only thing this release has in common with the previous Cemetary output is the same sub-standard quality that left them entombed in the chasms of out of print Black Mark releases no one cares for.

periphery-periphery_ii_this_time_its_personalPeriphery – Periphery 2: This Time It’s Personal

It’s important to note that borrowing a few techniques from the metal genre doesn’t make you a metal band. Underneath the “harsh” vocals and “crazy” drumming are mechanical Nu riffs and mathcore noodlings. Whiny crybaby vocals and pop-choruses make this nothing more than a commercial product for socialization amongst Xanax-addled teenagers who are somewhere between dropping out of high school and becoming Che Guevara shirt-wearing low level pot dealers who often lapse into 9/11 conspiracy rants. The whole thing is organized to seem more like an emo album with its pop-punk cheerfulness and feminine vocals that reflect a feeling of being “hurt” by “mean society and girls with standards,” much like their clone targets in Sikth. If these people were more honest with themselves, they would drop the superficial “EXTREME” portions and become the next Hawthorne Heights.

satyricon-the_shadowthroneSatyricon – The Shadowthrone

If you are looking for the start of black metal’s disintegration, it can be found here. Taking liberal inspiration from bands that preceded it, this album is the blueprint for how semi-talented musicians can copy a genre’s sound while embodying none of its spirit. The songs are narrative on the surface; however, when the listener attempts to peer beyond appearance it is quickly apparent that there is nothing of depth, the musical equivalent of modern poetry. Tracks meander from one location to another, never providing any causation for why the arena is changing. The riffs are tiring in their simplicity and irrelevance, and motifs are at best uninspired. The band also deserves blame for introducing drunken popularizations of folk melodies that distract listeners from the vapid quality of metal present, which has been the operating principle of folk metal for the last 20 years. The only people who can appreciate this album are the deaf and fans that lack standards.

harm-cadaver_christiHarm – Cadaver Christi

The real way to be a reviewer is to assume that nothing is free. No one gets a promo. Everyone must pay mall prices. There are no buddy hookups, freebies from the cutout bin, and you have a budget that’s commensurate with that which the average 15-27 year old can field. It doesn’t matter that the wiper blades for your Lexus cost more than even an album from overseas; the question is what your audience can afford. Your readers. And knowing that they have finite money and time, what’s worth spending it on for them? Music is a zero-sum game. If you can buy only five CDs a month, you want to buy the best five possible. All of this is what was once called common sense, apparently, but now is voodoo quantum dark energy esoteric witchcraft knowledge to most people. That being said, I’m sure the guys in Harm are nice people but this album is dismal. It’s bog-standard Swedish-style mid-paced death metal with every cliche of bad metal involved, including the highly derivative riffs, emphasis on vocals as lead instrument (a fatal failure for metal bands), plodding pace and lack of melodic or structural development. Avoid unless you’re so average that anything else is over your head.

xysma-first_and_magicalXysma – First and Magical

Starting life as a Carcass clone, Xysma have progressively been perverting that band’s Symphonies of Sickness formula into becoming a more accessible “rock” product through perceptively mainstream blues and psychedelic moments as well as the “angsty” sounds of then “nu” radio hit band Helmet. With liner notes claiming The Beach Boys as an influence, it all comes together as a light-hearted parody of underground metal through the juxtaposition of “happy” and “trippy” moments amidst blasting death/grind fare and two-note groove riffs. Arguably the first death n’ roll band, Xysma could be held responsible for the mainstreaming of death metal through the use of elements the genre at that point have fully filtered out of its sound. While I don’t think the band meant any harm with this release, it has nothing to offer except “light-hearted fun” and seems like a bizarre interim period between their old Carcass-influenced sounds and the Helmet style they would adopt on their next album Deluxe. Similar to what Tiamat and Entombed did, Xysma saw the potential for material gain in emphasizing grooves and so got rid of the vestigial underground baggage to embrace commercialization.

inquisition-obscure_verses_for_the_multiverseInquisition – Obscure Verses for the Multiverse

Inquisition has been a constant within the American metal scene for over a decade, churning out albums that differ little in quality from one another, though with still enough distinction to be recognizably different. The band’s latest release, Obscure Verses for the Multiverse, is a continuation of the band’s recognizable style.

On this album, the band further perfects its rendition of the rock-influenced black metal genre, with many similarities to bands such as Satyricon or Marduk. Rather than a connected narration binding each song together, tracks are riff composites that sacrifice atmosphere for chaos and disorder. In compensation, riffs utilize ornamentation such as harmonics, bends, and minor chord strums in order to retain interest as drums blast away incessantly. This succeeds for approximately 30 seconds before the listener realizes that he could derive the same effect by shaking a glass container of marbles as a phone rings in the distance, simultaneously entertaining and a source of exercise.

However, this author has no desire to be unjust: the album undoubtedly will be praised by many a Wacken attendee and provide each an hour of entertainment, and truly; that is the goal of metal. After all, it certainly couldn’t be art!

sheol-sepulchral_ruins_below_the_templeSheol – Sepulchral Ruins Below the Temple

This is a really good effort but ultimately isn’t distinctive enough, and it’s not a matter of style. The style applied here is mid-period death metal hybridized with the latest trend, which has been Incantation/Demoncy worship by people who love linear riffs that internally counterbalance themselves with extended chromatic fills that crush melodic tension. Sheol have put a lot of thought into the amount of variation in each song, the coherence of the style, and in adding distinctive elements like intros, melodic accents and rhythmic breaks. However, ultimately this is a churning stampede of riffs that are relatively similar in approach and thus form, and the result is that it feels like listening to the wind while riding a train with the window open.

harm_wulf-theres_honey_in_the_soil_so_we_wait_for_the_tillHarm Wülf – There’s Honey In The Soil So We Wait For The Till

I had a grandfather who traveled the country as a journalist, interviewing union leaders. This generally happened on Greyhoud buses, because if you were a man of the people back then, you wanted to be seen in the common man’s transportation. During a disproportionate number of these interviews, someone was softly playing a guitar in the background and singing. It sounds exactly like Harm Wülf. Despite the cute somewhat edgy name and the aura of mysterious darkness, Harm Wülf is a fifteenth-generation copy of a copy from four generations ago. Soft guitar playing uses only about three strum patterns and gently loops over a verse and chorus while the half-whispered, half-sung vocals are the real focus. This is how college weenies have been getting laid since 4,000 B.C. It seems deep on the surface, but it’s really a pile of cliches, starting with the awkward and obviously imitative title. It wants to emulate a well-known post-Neurosis project, but that’s actually good. This is just rehash, reheated and disguised behind a single sprig of parsley.

ayreon-the_theory_of_everythingAyreon – The Theory of Everything

Oddly, this band merges 1970s prog rock sounds with 1980s pop and ends up mixing in a number of diverse influences that, per the nature of ambitious merges, default to a common ancestor. Thus this album ends up being ambitious AOR with periodic metal riffs, a lot of keyboards, and a lot of cheesy vocals. If you like walking turds like Helloween’s Keeper of the Seven Keys this cheese-fest will delight you. It is not as pretentious as the 1970s progressive rock that defined the genre, but it’s also uncannily pop which makes it hard for an experienced listener to tolerate. Musically, it is better than average, other than a lack of melodic development or use of harmony and key as we’d expect from a prog band. Aesthetically, it’s the contemporary equivalent of Boston or Asia or any of those other prog-soundalikes that never crossed that line to got full-on hardcore.

deathbreed-your_stigmataDeathbreed – Your Stigmata

Fairly standard deathcore, Deathbreed sounds death but doesn’t feel deathy. That is, there’s a lot of quoting of classic motifs from death metal, but they don’t get developed, and the band has no agenda so they end up at a musical LCD that’s basically rock made like a punk band would if using metal riffs. The result is predictable, but that’s not its problem. What kills it is that it has nothing to express. Even teenagers bleating out predictable platitudes about their trivial problems would be more realistic than this photocopy of a photocopy (with added jump-beats for the slower kids).

ulcerate-vermisUlcerate – Vermis

On Vermis, Ulcerate once again fool the gullible into thinking that “if it’s needlessly discordant and has growls on it, it’s the NEW and EVOLVED death metal,” only it’s not that apt. Underneath all the wankery, you’ll discover the songs never really go anywhere beyond the idea established in the beginning. All the superficially chaotic sounds render a meta-atmosphere of insanity through discordance, but the one fixed mode of expression this dwells in makes it all very obvious by the first track’s conclusion.

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Sadistic Metal Reviews 11-15-13

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What are Sadistic Metal Reviews? Most people think socially, which means to approve of everyone and everything. We think critically, which means to look at the music itself. This means there will be hurt feelings, since 99% of everything is mediocre (at best) and 99% of people are delusional. Welcome to elitism. Enjoy the sweet taste of tears… and occasional quality metal.

satyricon-nemesis_divinaSatyricon – Nemesis Divina

In a stroke of great luck and management genius, Satyricon bring together the guitar talents of Nocturno Culto (Darkthrone) with a style similar to that of later Enslaved, in which death metal riffing is varied between chords and single notes at a time, producing an acerbic melody crashing into pummeling buffet of aggressive power chording. Riff forests rotate around a handful of themes per song that are swept up into their own maelstrom and through gated flow control dropped into a final lock-on to a summary motif. There is a carnival atmosphere, owing to both the circular
songwriting patterning and use of keyboards to accentuate dominant beats and central tones. While not profound, this release is enjoyable, and in its aesthetic showed what could — with the help of someone as powerful as Nocturno Culto on guitars — be produced from the otherwise confused fecalization in musical form that is Satyricon.

oceano-incisionsOceano – Incisions

This is what Earache Records has reduced itself to: signing deafkore. Oceano plays metalcore with death metal “sounds” that are sandwiched between Meshuggah-esque mechanical rhythms in songs that have the soul of Slipknot. This is one dimensional “angry at school and the gub-ment” music that reveals how norming death metal towards encompassing dancehall conventions (breakdowns and “groove” emphasis) was a bad idea. In the end, this limited and fashion oriented genre at it’s “best” sounds like the musical version of Danny DeVito’s classroom during the beginning of Renaissance Man.

dethklok-metalocalypse_the_doomstar_requiem_a_klok_operaDethklok – Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem A Klok Opera

Irony is a form of social camouflage. That is, it allows you to conceal your social stumbles under a layer of socially-approved insincerity. When you do something stupid, you claim you meant it ironically. If it’s not funny, it’s ironic. It’s basically a giant excuse for failure that makes you still seem like you “meant to do that.” Dethklok has always irritated me with its wimpiness because it can’t own up to what it means to say. The “Klok Opera” is no different; based loosely on Rocky Horror Picture Show and other send-ups of this nature, this rock opera is a parade of cliches taken to stereotypical extremes to be, you know, funny. I imagine it’s more interesting while watching the video, but as music it’s mediocre at best and strikingly empty. There are no themes here that could stand on their own; this wouldn’t make the cut as ordinary music, but seems to survive because there’s comedy attached. If you like Adam Sandler movies, and think that people doing stupid stuff is somehow really funny, you probably have no life and might think this is OK. The oddity is that when the ‘klok decide for a few moments to man up and try to take life as a real experience, as in “Blazing Star” they come up with passable riffs. Nowhere is there evidence that these could be integrated into any kind of song structure, but let’s face it: comedy is a genre of face value statements, not depth, and so this fits and shows how the limits of its creators determined its ultimate form. I’d really like for metal to have a sense of humor, and thus to enjoy this, but I end up feeling like I’ve just encountered another one of the plastic disposable products of modern society that lacks the balls to own up to what it wants to say. So here’s a one-word review: “lame.”

whitechapel-whitechapelWhitechapel – Whitechapel

Variations on monotonic chugging patterns are all that could be found on this metalcore release that only pretends to be death metal on the outside through “ANGRY” vocals and an “EXTREME” drum performance. The incorporation of Tool-esque “soft” meandering moments suggest a sense of trying to be “deep”, but like all deafkore releases, this is just another marketing point to check off the list to make this product appear more valuable than their other vapidity pandering peers through gimmickry. A lot of these riffs feel like more downtuned renditions of what we already heard in the mid 90s through Fear Factory, Machine Head, and other bands that brought “metal” into the mainstream by downgrading it into a hip-hop image pandering lifestyle product. The melodic underpinnings are just that — underpinnings — to dress up the chugging variations for the sake of making people “mosh” on the “dancefloor” without any of them becoming self-aware and noticing that everything on here is basically the same thing on repeat for about 40 minutes. Pathetic lyrics show a heritage owed more to Korn than anything from the death metal field. All in all, another excuse for Metal Blade to cash in on trends before severing ties when the easy money dries up.

disgrace-vol_2Disgrace – Vol. 2

The “lost” second album by Finnish band Disgrace sees them throw away the non-linear song structures and underground metal aesthetics to embrace what was hinted at on their Grey Misery LP: rock music. Continuing that albums proto “death n’ roll” grooves but within the context of bluesy rock numbers sees Disgrace making reasonable 90s styled “angsty” rock in the vein of Helmet or Monster Magnet, but this music is so passive and “safe” when compared to anything from the metal realm because there’s no artistry to be found here. Just another reason to “have fun” and “rock out”. In doing that, I suppose this music could succeed in a mainstream level if this band had better promotion, but it also reveals a simple method those without ideas use for making interchangeable teeny-bopper stoner music that makes it no wonder why albums like this exist in the first place.

boris-praparatBoris – Präparat

When bands have nothing to say but want to receive attention, they make fashion statements in the form of ironic gestures and imagery. Boris is a band with no identity and nothing to say, so they comment on existing musical forms by playing up to their conventions and giving it an outwardly “ironic” appearance for novelty’s sake, jumping from genre to genre offering nothing worthwhile the entire time. Here they mimic the dream pop stylings of bands like Jesu and throw some repetitive one riff “sludge” tracks in there to appease their hipster “drone” audience. With so many hipster albums already fitting this description, it’s obvious the only reason Boris is ahead of the pack is through their poorly enunciated vocals and “strange” artwork which Starbucks aficionados will perceive as “ironically different”. A worthless artistically void lifestyle product that serves the same function as owning a season of Arrested Development on DVD.

cancer-death_shall_riseCancer – Death Shall Rise

Doomed to stumble upon the evolutionary ladder, Cancer released a very poor excuse for a death metal album. Sounding like WASP on a bad day attempting to make itself sound like older Sepultura or Death through a Morrisound production, Cancer create plodding mid-tempo fare that is so lifeless it makes Benediction look like Dismember by comparison. Block headed riffs are given a “death metal makeover” through the insertion of tremolo picked notes between simple rock chord progressions played on downtuned guitars. If Nuclear Blast tasked Terri Schiavo with creating a Benediction B-sides album, this would be the result.

animals_as_leaders-weightlessAnimals as Leaders – Weightless

Sounding more like a glitchy video game soundtrack than anything metal, Animals as Leaders make music that is complex on a production and performance level, but very simple in its intent. Underneath melodic shred guitar, jazz noodling, “complex” chord shapes and samples is nothing but rhythmic chugging sounds with a “soft and heavy” nu dynamic that renders all the complexity on the performance front moot since this is very boring and obvious music that sounds like it would function better as stock video game music than a legitimate listening experience. As such, this is the background noise gullible oafs try to pass on to others as “complex, thinking man’s music” but there really is nothing to this aside from functioning as a musical suite where technique is on display, but no artistic vision. With so many releases fitting this bill, this offers nothing more than the gimmick of being a “modern” version of what could be a Shrapnel Records release. Vapid noise for heavily medicated deficients who will soon abandon their “metal” albums for the “mature and contemporary” sounds of A Perfect Circle and The Mars Volta in about 2 weeks. As always, nothing on offer but marketing schtick got the upper hand.

satyricon-dark_medieval_timesSatyricon – Dark Medieval Times

Temptingly close to the original thrust of passion which made black metal from Scandinavia so popular, Satyricon is everything the original had except the last 5% of “getting it” that entails address of the spirit of the darkness invoked by these bands. Gently harmonizing black metal uses melodic riffing to build a mood and then levels it, going back to its central supposition and basic riff constructions; however, the longer the melodic riffs get, the clearer it is that they have no centering in concept, although they’re clearly central in tone. One has to see Satyr as a tragic figure, being as musically, socially and intellectually competent as his peers, but lacking something that Fenriz and Ihsahn did not, possibly the same void that impelled him to be the one to start the record label that would carry on black metal — including the music of Darkthrone — after its breath of life had died. While there is nothing to disqualify this release, it is the recommendation of this reviewer that the sensible listener avoid it and focus on the great releases instead of this also-ran.

empyreus-the_burning_pathEmpyreus – The Burning Path

Better get some penicillin! Proof that black metal is being paraded around by its cliches can be found in the buffoonery known as The Burning Path. Think of this music as [b]lack metal waterboarding, except that it interrogates you until your inner clown is exposed and is used against you… Grim, much like Frankenberry and Count Chocula are “scary” in the cereal industry, Empyreus charge ahead with an additional copy of chromosome 21 to subject the listener to an assortment of late 1990s black metal stereotypes. As a result, the music is a potboiler of haphazardness in which nothing worthwhile is conveyed outside of dinky mimicry. However, The Burning Path sounds like [b]lack metal when you’re not paying attention. Perhaps people who don’t listen to music will enjoy it.

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Satyricon – Satyricon

satyricon-satyriconWhat do musicians do when the drive to create has vanished?

When the label is clamoring for something new, does the band bow down and fulfill the request, or do they uphold standards? Black metal in particular has struggled with these questions for over a decade, with a myriad of responses. Some have chosen to retreat completely, seeking refuge in the wild.

Some have become exasperated with the genre, turning to electronic music before returning in glory. Others have waged war on modernity, risking well-being in pursuit of these goals. However, the greatest number have bowed to the wishes of the crowd and released a product that was quickly forgotten, which is where Satyricon’s self-titled album falls.

Embodying all that is lazy and lethargic, Satyricon is an excellent example of modern black metal ethos. Black metal only on the surface, the album is musically a hard rock/heavy metal album designed for max promotional appeal. Simple riffs with obvious sequencing, simple implementation, and solid production produce a well-shaped package that undoubtedly will allow the band to increase its commercial influence.

Sounding like a tribute to Fallen-era Burzum‘s minor-chord noodling but lacking even what little sense of spirit that album possessed, the band chucks in references to pop and blues cliches as if the label funded a study aimed at producing the most cookie-cutter album conceivable, then shared the results to the band…and let’s not delve into the collaboration with Sivert Høyem.

There is nothing here for readers of this site to enjoy, except for the more morbid members among us. This album goes nowhere. It has nothing to impart. And perhaps most damning, it’s not even terrible. It is simply a non-entity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPXnnTUl48Q

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