One thing I admire about this band is that rather than attacking the low-hanging fruit, Christianity. They nut up and attack Islam, whose followers are fanatical enough to come after you for being critical, just ask Salaman Rushdie, who is still in hiding. Rather than just relying on this as a gimmick these guys are legit and bring black metal as good as anyone. The snarled lyrics are often set against such a razor-sharp storm of guitars that you must pay close attention to make out what they are saying. They have no shortage of anger in the hateful attack of 'Cunt God". Hateful is a word we do not use in black metal enough anymore, and that is a shame as we should make black metal hate again, as that is the essence of the genre... hate and darkness. These guys are bringing both
All to often Finnish black metal is very raw, to capture a legit sound of days past. This album is well produced almost like mid-period Dimmu to some extent. "Sulphurserpent" is perhaps not as inspired as the previous songs as it leans too far into the fast blasting and is more chaos than songwriting, but for the more typical vision of what black metal is they succeed in what they were going for. I just prefer the more nuanced songwriting that can be found on "Blood Poetry" which is one of the year's best black metal songs so far. It works off a bass groove that everything breaks down to creep around before shifting the dynamics into something bigger.
When they build momentum on this album with songs like " A Heav'n of Hell" it's very apparent that their sound shifts towards a more epic symphonic landscape. They have grown into this grandiosity well. "I Enthrone You" rages with a more rabid pace. They join in a triumphant chant for the chorus, serving as an effective battle cry. Then things begin to open up more for melody and dynamics. Just because you are hateful it does not mean there should not be a wide range of sonic moods to this anger. After all, anger is expressed in many different ways, some more violent than others. "Black Venus Erotica' lays on a tense buzzing of thrashing guitars, that gives them a little more room to build upon rather than just blasting.
"He That Eateth My Flesh" feels like one of the interlude segments from a King Diamond album. It takes half of the song before it modulates from the more droning main section of the song. Sounds creepy but is a very slow burn. When it comes to the ten-and-a-half-minute sprawl of the first "Worship" song, I can understand why some black metal fans might find it too accessible for their liking as it does parade around in a very majestic fashion not unlike some of the pomp and circumstance a band like Behemoth is known to indulge in, but for what it is the composition is impressive and it's growth for this band, and I won't fault them for that. Even though I am less impressed with the "Ignis" past of "Worship" that closes the album,, it carries all the venom they need to spew to convince black metal fans they are not going for a wider audience here,. This is an improvement over "Infidel" so I will give it a 9.5, all fans of black metal should take notice.
No comments:
Post a Comment