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People seem to say this a lot. Wether it's "It sounds like there's more going on than there actually is" or "It makes you think it's better than it actually is." Damn, there are a bunch of tricky musicians out there, fooling people into liking them.
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i bet there's some smart person (who works at a university or something!) who has written a book about how the job of a musician is to coax an emotional reaction out of their audience by guiding their minds with sound, kinda like how comedians do it. that would be a neat book although i'd imagine the author would be a very unhappy person.
This really isn’t that difficult of a concept to grasp. First, let’s look at what I actually said:
“…but its relative palatability yet vague sort of progressiveness have surely played a part in convincing many that it's much better than it really is.”
I clearly said that it, including the “vague” aspect of it, plays a part in convincing many that it’s better than it really is. This has nothing to do with convincing them to like it. And nowhere did I say it is the only element or that it is by itself sufficient cause for such an action. What it is, and what I was saying before, is that it is a kind of catalyst for a certain response, particularly in someone not adept enough or willing to examine it more critically. This need not be purposeful or benevolent.
It is much the same process when reading a book. A child may find a rich fantasy novel to be very vivid and real, and through the book they may come to believe there is another world hidden in their closet. They do not yet understand that it is fantasy, and it takes further inspection and questioning for them to ultimately come to the correct conclusion – that it is a made up story. …But an even better example might be a book on some historical subject. The book may, to you, present an elaborate and convincing case for itself and its premises. And the writing style may be such that you are even further drawn in. But the book may be nothing more than a lie, believable only to someone who does not know better nor has more relevant information on the subject. It is perfectly possible to believe something that is not true, and it is a reality that things like books, music, etc. can contribute greatly to human error.
The aforementioned situations require action on the part of the observer or reader, yes, as it is they who draw the conclusions. But there would be no conclusions if it weren’t for the catalyst that had them considering the subject in the first place.
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well otherwise you're basically saying "i dislike them," which is cool, but i can't say much in response to it, other than "i disagree," which is fairly obvious. you think they're insincere and their songs are poorly written, i think the songs are so awesome and the vocals so nakedly emotional that they're almost uncomfortable to listen to. i guess i would disagree that Weakling sound is made up of staple black metal elements since the Burzum-y vocals are the only thing that jump out at me as sounding heavily like another BM band i've heard, otherwise they're pretty sparing with blast beats and other typical BM elements. to me, the only bands who they sound similar to are Ludicra, Krallice, Wolves in the Throne Room, etc who were obviously influenced by them.
I really said very little about whether I like them or not. You can easily infer that I don’t, and you’d be correct, but that really wasn’t the point. Similarly, I’m not trying to criticize you or anyone else for liking them.
I take issue with your statements about the quality of the album though, and most of the other posters here have done the same though not nearly to the extent that I have.
Countering “poorly written” with “songs so awesome” is meaningless. Countering “insincere” with “vocals so nakedly emotional they’re almost uncomfortable to listen to” is better, but there’s more to the band than the vocalist. Perhaps the vocals are almost uncomfortable to listen to because they’re simply bad and so forced they’re thoroughly unconvincing?
You’re right in alluding to heavy Burzum worship here, but it goes beyond that. This is black metal worship gone wrong. Or gone nowhere. Or both. I’d say both.
There are plenty of blastbeats on here when the songs aren’t spiraling into pointlessness, but you’re right that the drumming does do more than just blast away. Whether or not that makes them really worth listening to is another story. The guitars are mostly the same riffs and ideas we’ve heard before (You haven’t heard this stuff before? How much black metal have you
really listened to?), again when the songs aren’t spiraling into pointlessness. The main riff on the opening track sounds like it came from Enslaved’s Eld. It’s probably not the only one. Let’s see, at 8:10 or so of “This Entire Fucking Battlefield” I hear a riff that sounds strangely derivative of one found in Emperor’s “Beyond the Great Vast Forest” only this one is somehow neutered into something both less developed and less interesting. You’d wonder how that could be possible given that this came out six years later… that is, if the rest of the album wasn’t constantly reminding you of just how possible it really is. It could be argued that that the song does finish on a strong, even passionate note (starting at around 10:00), but unfortunately, there really wasn’t much there worth actually listening to until that point in the song let alone something that really builds into something worthy of a dramatic climax. Worse still, they clearly didn’t know how or when to end the song as everything after about 14:05 should have been cut.
One of the lead riffs of “No One Can Be Called As a Man While He’ll Die” might have been lifted from Pale Folklore, only watered down (or aborted) from the lead solo that that was into something that I guesses passes as a …something …something not worthy of being repeated a hundred times, whatever you want to call it. The incoherent howling from the vocalist plunders on. How you can’t break out laughing while listening to this is beyond me. People give Attila grief for what he did on DMDS, but this makes that performance look like Pavarotti in comparison.
So many parts of this album, like (once again) in track four for example, just aren’t that interesting and drag on far too long with no real purpose. Even the piano that eventually starts to accompany it can’t save this mess, nor can the relatively decent riff that works its way in later (but I swear I’ve heard it before and the tone on this entire record is so fucking bad it doesn’t really matter when something is halfway decent).
Lastly, this song title: “Disasters in the Sun”… What the fuck is that anyway? It's a fucking nuclear reaction in there. A disaster would be if it stopped. Why couldn't the band grasp this and simply make this track 17 minutes of silence instead? Or they could have just ended the album then without the actual track. Now that might have been original, and I'm sure they might have gotten a kick out of confusing listeners who frantically searched for the missing track. But no, we're just "treated' to more of the same.
Hey, there a few are moments on this album that are interesting, and as I said before I don’t think this album is completely terrible or without any decent parts or ideas. But then again, at nearly 80 minutes it’s a mean feat to make every note suck (though Metallica sure came close).
It might be tempting to say that there was more potential here, that if they had cut down on the length and the unnecessary parts or repetition, that they could have had something better. But then, they wouldn’t have maybe the one thing that you could maybe argue was somewhat “unique” at the time – that their “black metal compositions” were as long as GY!BE’s. Unfortunately, while the songs here may be as long or nearly as long as theirs, there is absolutely none of the songwriting mastery on display that the former displayed. This is aimless, directionless, and soulless. It’s long not just for the sake of being long but also because these guys couldn’t organize even borrowed ideas. This is a band that wasn’t creating something new and profound, but one that was desperately in need of an editor and a true sense of purpose… or perhaps, someone to talk them out of making the record in the first place.
…I think Wolves in the Throne Room has a lot of the same problems these guys do, only they add in a blatant element of at least appearing to be either stupid or very misinformed (though that’s obviously not how they try to pass it off). I own two of their albums, and that’s infinitely more than they deserve but it’s what I get for not really listening to them before I bought them.
I haven’t heard the other bands you mentioned.
*Edited for clarity and typos*
How else do you respond to bullshit like that?