Music must be destroyed
Heavy metal blog for tortured souls or just people who like to headbang to some (good?) music.
miércoles, 27 de abril de 2011
Why your Black Metal band sucks part I: Ulver
Why your Black metal sucks part I: Ulver
You know what really sucks about Black metal? Everything. Well, okay, maybe not everything. There are good things in Black metal, even if you can only count them with the hand of a person who’s missing a finger… or two. But taking that aside, I’m actually pointing out and rooting a severe musical genre that occasionally (but not always?) suffers from absolute, raw, pure unadulterated and utter boredom. Exactly, boredom. Some of this stuff is so repetitive and monotonous it would make Satan fall asleep and lose all interest in torturing poor souls. This is the thing with Black metal, though; it either makes people bored or just really fucking annoyed.
Today I’m going to talk about Ulver. What’s not to like about these guys, right? Yeah, right. Pretty stupid if you ask me! Ulver’s basically this Black metal band, or ahem, a band that used to be Black metal. This band actually had their first three albums released or considered to be Black Metal; the other albums from their catalogue are a weird combination of Electronica and other strange things. What happened here? In fact, not even all of their first three albums are black metal, only two are; the first and third. I’m not even gonna lie or try to sugar coat something I haven’t listened to, because I only heard the first and third; so I won’t even begin to wonder about the other albums these guys have produced.
Their first album ‘Bergtatt – Et eeventyr I 5 capitler’ (Try saying that three times fast!), is a lo-fi, underproduced album with folk and black metal. Now being someone who likes variety, I wouldn’t say it’s a bad thing to mix two genres into Black metal. In fact, from the first and third album, I would say this is the definite winner. It offers a decent variation of the songs, and you can get to hear acoustic vocals, shrieks, a choir, and even (dare I say so?) clean vocals. Even then, something that really ticks me off is just how really cheap it sounds, or even how disruptive some of the songs are. I really hate the fact that there’s this really nice and sweet passage going on, and wham! Oh shit, suddenly we’re with shrieks and the folk ambient changed into the more obnoxious, unfavorable Black Metal. This must be one of the best songs in the whole album;
Then there’s the third album, ‘Nattens madrigal – Aatte Hymne til ulven I manden’. A lot of people seem to actually like this, but I just think it’s retarded. Honestly, while it’s not without its charm, it’s so ridiculously lo-fi it’s not even funny. Like not even a garbled phone conversation in a fucking cave sounds so distorted and idiotic. It’s stupid, and while some passages sound interesting, it all sounds the fucking same when you fastforward it anyway. The thing is, this album is lo-fi on purpose, there are rumors that state they recorded this album in a Nordic forest... that, or the less romantic idea of a tape recorder.
I have this horrible problem with lo-fi recording in Black metal. It’s one of the things that I most hate, and I guess people would kill me for it. But it’s just so frustrating that it gets to point where it’s not enjoyable, and even a chore to listen to. And let’s face it, in this time we’re living in, the best is not a fucking cassette recording. God! Or in this case, Satan! I understand that some bands do this because of the art and shit, and it’s okay if one band does it, but I don’t understand how it became a norm to torture your fans. For me, this is what Black metal should sound like;
Even then, some people would say I’m cheating because Venom doesn’t sound like the Black metal bands being produced now. So fine, how about this better:
This is real Black metal for me. Strong, emotional, and kick ass, just how metal should be; not some shitty ass dudes being naked in a forest, recording their 1 cent guitar skills in a fucking tape recorder. And you know what? Ulver is actually one of the best Black metal bands I’ve ever listened to, it’s at least decent, and in some cases, good. But don’t even get me started with early Marduk. That truly is Satan’s way of punishing his prisoners.
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