Thursday, February 19, 2015

Black Metal History Month: Just How Black Metal is Muck's" Your Joyous Future "?



Noisey might have credited the band with being a jack of all trades even infusing black metal into their sound, so we will see if this holds up.It opens with a song that is no doubt hardcore. The second song "Blasti Mig" makes me think of Motorhead Jamming with Mike Muir of Suicidal Tendencies.The first thing that strikes me about the quality of the sound is the bass tone. It's has thump in all the right place. This band in many ways is not unlike Kvelertak. The rock n roll elements where the Motorhead comes from has a drunk party vibe. The beginning of "My City" hits like one of the Amp Rep post- hardcore bands like Unsane, then it gets into a more punk spasm. The sung vocals come back in with the Mike Muir thing going.

There is a pretty raging Black Flag meets Converge attack to "Time". But not a tremolo picked string or blast beat for miles. The only dissonance still comes in the reckless Amp Rep noise rock of "Blind and Bent". The great thumping bass bangs back into the intro of the very "Bleach" era Nirvana tribute "Waiting". Noisey even said these guys dipped into post-punk, but I guess they don't know the difference between post- punk and grunge. They do get a little darker on the ominous " Martrod" but it is more sludge like than coming any where close to black metal.

They take to old school hardcore, which they do excel at , on "Blissless" which finds the first thing that could be construed as black metal but it lasts for less than ten seconds. If you have a second with a ten second blast beat does that make you black metal? There is more punk ruckus on "Here Comes the Man". It makes me think of what Fugazi might have sounded like if the did drugs. The chords are more sonic, but not black metal just fast indie rock. If you read my interview with Ritual Butcher from Arch Goat then you know this debate would have already been over since in his mind black metal has to be all about Satan, and not this Black Flaggish take on a hipster Motorhead. I'm a fan of Satan, but I think there are many fine black metal album that have branched into other topics. These guys are concerned about someone watching them while they are watching them. There is no darkness, a little shading no darkness .

They make no attempt at black metal , but just all out straight ahead hard core punk on the last song. Not even a wink at black metal. This song is alright in some of the punchier sections, but the ranting it lets go wild is not my favorite. If I was going to score this album as to how black metal it was it would get a 2, but for overall musicality I'll give it an 8 as it has some strong moments. I might have liked this album better if I had gone into with different expectations rather than just waiting for the black metal and post- punk parts to show up which are just not here.
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