Dark and extreme sounding music to express nihilistic views...If you are looking for a positive sounding motivational album, I would say that you might want to pass on this one.
The Negation are not your typical black metal band and their second full-length album, “Memento Mori,” is ever more depressive sounding than an album about cold winter lands where guys run around playing Dungeons and Dragons. Kaotoxin Records will be releasing the album on July 6(July 7 North America), and I am not surprised they are releasing this album given Kaotoxin’s extreme history. I would say The Negation has an unapologetic tone that comes across very vividly on each song. Musically this band knows how to create efficient and strong sounding recordings. The harsh production captures this band’s sound perfectly. I still detect the standard black metal formula on some of the songs, but The Negation throws in some massive riffs to give the music a slight death metal quality.
Pretty much all the songs on this album will wake you up and introduce your ears to a vicious sound that will excite all fans of extreme music. After the bone chilling introduction the band strikes with the song, “The True Enemy.” Aggressive sounding guitar riffs fill the soundscape and the vocals grab your attention with blood curdling screams of agony. The music is bold and has a great overall production value that helps me find a way to separate them from the thousands of other black metal bands I have reviewed. The following track, “Sacrifice the Weak,” is extremely pessimistic and expresses a unique societal concept of how the strong survive and weak are left to suffer. I think the track is a brilliant example of unforgiving musical expression that some in the world try to ignore by filling their heads with cheesy zero substance pop/rap music. The musicianship is stellar and those blast beats give the song a rapid and relentless pulse.
Another track that I really liked on this album was, “Faith in God’s Corpse.” The riff dynamics are amazing! There can be intense traditional black metal compositions and then you can have these brief sections of slow mountainous distortion filled bursts. If you listen closely you feel your heart beating along to the guitar chords being struck.
“Visions of Doom” and “Resistance,” are two track that continue to reinforce the album’s massive dark sound and the bleak lyrics about mankind. This singer does not fall victim to the black metal gimmick and if anything gives the music a boost of pure rebellious attitude. The outro to this album was beyond haunting with its soundbites and dark cinematic sound effects. I felt as if I am watching a documentary about the collapse of society and standing alone amongst a pile of burning buildings.
For all those looking to hear some unbelievably extreme black metal, I have an album for you. The Negation’s, “Memento Mori,” is an album that I think works if you are in a certain mood. This is definitely an album I would like to listen to when I am feeling truly pissed off. For the recording as a whole, I think The Negation did a great job and demonstrated outstanding recording abilities. Now, I do not think the Negation is going to be playing any shows on a sunny beach in front of partying college students...Actually I would like to see that happen so I could see the horrified looks on the students’ faces...Oh, I want that to happen!
The Negation Facebook Page
No comments:
Post a Comment