Dark Funeral : "We Are the Apocalypse "

 

The title sounding promising but here is an experiment for you. Try listening to Kate Bush, then switching right over to this album and the first track will seem a lot more aggressive. I am sure if you hit some weed before doing so then this might magnify the dynamic leap you are taking. The first song is pretty aggressive, but from a song writing perspective there is not much else to it. The second is a dynamic shift in that it is more of a deliberate throb, but the production is so much slicker than it has lost most of the more blackened qualities so it more like Satyricon.  

Then when we get to "When Our Vengeance is Done" it's back to blasty mcnasty as normal. I get as a black metal band and veterans of the scene who have seen other trends come and go it is good to be consistent, however it feels more like well-produced stagnation when they do not take more chances to use other shades of black. In fact in so doing with a song like "Nosferatu" it feels like there is a great deal of wasted opportunity to capture a mood to fit the lyrics as recorded there is nothing vampiric to full speed ahead raging, but those lyrics would have fit better over the darker more deliberate pulse of "When I am Gone" that follows it.  I think this deliberation adds more nuance and the breathing room for guitar melodies making it one the album's best songs. 

"Beyond the Grave" is back to the color by numbers blasting. I guess I can appreciate they have been at it for such a long time and find plenty to still be hateful about. I always say make black metal hate again and hear it more in the attack of the music than the lyrics. Though they do mention a world where the sun will no longer give warmth, which I am down with. I can say the vocals serve more purpose in this song, and I am not against them playing fast if it serves the song. "A Beast to Serve" has great lyrics that are once again lost in the blur of translation in the fury the overall playing steam rolls them with. "Leviathan" does a better job of this is the verses, it holds more common ground with say Dissection in this regard. The title track just kind of blasts past though after listening to an entire album almost made up of this sort of thing , the brain gets used to it and it does not seem as intense when they first hit you with.  I will give this a  7.5,  it is far from their best, but anything that is not a kinder and gentler sentiment I support.