Noise Pollution #35: When Enough is……
So my original plan here was to finish the Krieg tour story no one cares about, paired with the sequel to “Hail To Sweden Part 1” but then Darkthrone announced a new album this week, with another Uncle Fenriz video talking about heavy metal and saying the album title in a silly voice. When I checked the track listing and saw most of the songs were again over six minutes I figured this would be another (the third in a row, actually) Darkthrone record that just wasn’t for me. But I’m sure it’ll be hailed as genius, like the last two, and not the misadventure of what Fenriz turned into after he discovered the internet. I’m sure I’ll be told I just don’t like “fun,” a complaint that every woman I’ve ever dated has had (yet when I rationalize that I just don’t like their type of fun suddenly I’m the asshole?) ad nauseum. And that’s ok with me.
We can (and probably should) look at it this way: bands are under no obligation to continually satisfy exactly what we, as individuals, want from them. Afterall, we do not own them. On the flipside, however, is that we, again as individuals,don’t have to love everything the bands we’re into do. We don’t even need to purchase anything related to those records, it doesn’t mean that we’re not “fans” or whatever asinine argument you could make. I know those of us with the nerd collector gene in us can have difficulty not owning a physical copy of records we don’t like, just to fill a gap in the collection, but remember that space and money are finite, as well as your time-try to use all of them wisely.
One of my floating concepts for this exercise in self importance was bands who, like Darkthrone, lost me and at what point in their existence? Bonus points if the record turned out to be my favorite of theirs. I picked out five for this endeavor, with at least two that will earn me some insults because I dropped off before their more “celebrated” albums or because I obviously am against progression or a variety of stupid shit. Anyway, let’s get started.
Emperor - In the Nightside Eclipse
It’s not that I think Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk is a bad record, it’s honestly fine. I just really cannot get into post “Nightside..” Emperor, especially anything after the aforementioned second album. And that’s sort of where they stayed, even in their post-Emperor pre-making bank on the festival circuit. Never dug Zyklon or Peccatum or even any of Ihshan’s solo work. I think it’s because my brain ceases to soak in anything that is overly technical, progressive or “forward thinking” and whatever chemical imbalance that’s made my relationships hell for others or my inability to return emails on time also stays comfortable in more primitive planes. I have therapy today, I’ll bring up Emperor and see what she says.
In the Nightside Eclipse was one of the first five or six black metal records I heard but I didn’t really start to appreciate it for a few years and, especially in the last few years, it’s become a cornerstone in my listening habits. It’s not necessarily “primitive” by most standards, there is the signs of future guitar heroism hiding in many of the songs and, by this time, the symphonic elements were more along the lines of classical music than before. I think it’s just because the record captures such a unique atmosphere that so many have spent the following thirty years trying to somehow mimic, yet continually fall short.
Katatonia - Brave Murder Day
So, a bit of history of me: I (stupidly) got engaged when I was like 19 years old, which is the sort of story that could fill a few hundred pages of itself, but this album came out around then and, for whatever fucking reason, we were going to have “Rainroom” as our wedding song, ruining the song not just for me but everyone present. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed (plus she fucked my guitarist) so I can still put this album on now and enjoy it.
When this came out there was very little like it. There wasn’t really a depressive black metal “scene” spewing out angsty teen poetry over Joy Division beats. Bands that actually did the subgenre well, like Lifelover, were years away. Really, it was Strid and Katatonia with a few outliers if you wanted to listen to black metal that would make you feel like shit. Brave Murder Day was a perfect album, far and away my favorite thing they were ever involved with (the first October Tide and For Funerals Yet to Come are up there). After this it just felt like they were treading water until Tonight’s Decision, which I liked at the time but have kind of grown cold on. Once they hit Viva Emptiness I had lost interest entirely and to this day really dislike that record and every one after that I’ve heard. It feels like the same thing over and over to me, which I’m sure plenty of people would disagree with. But “Brave Murder Day?” Chef’s fucking kiss.
Behemoth - Sventevith (Storming Near the Baltic)
From start to finish this record is everything that I wanted black metal to be when I was in my teens and this first came out. Raw yet atmospheric, with a lot of acoustic guitar that was used as a main instrument and not some folk misdirection used as an intro (which I also had/have a soft spot for). Nergal’s vocals are unhinged, approaching Forgotten Woods territory at times. Fuck, this is just a well constructed album that flows from start to finish. Even the cover is perfectly in step with the music. I had such high hopes for the future of the band. Then I got “Grom.”
It seemed to me that a lot of the Polish bands followed two distinct paths (three if we’re talking about the sketchy bands I’d get the police called on me for naming) which were the raw Norse informed atmospheric route or they would slowly turn into different variations of Vader. Behemoth was the latter, maybe sprinkled in with some Nile for aesthetic measure. It’s a style that I only appreciate with Vader themselves. Behemoth went from two killer demos and a perfect full length to something I could not enjoy. I’m sure Nergal would be heartbroken to hear that, seeing that the band never seemed to blow up internationally without my support and all.
Great live show, though, even if I’m not into the music.
Anathema - Serenades
I don’t know if many bands made it out of the death/doom scene in the UK/Europe in the early 90s without turning into some kind of hippy shit. Celestial Season and My Dying Bride were able to make their way back from the brink of unlistenability but bands like Pyogenesis or The Gathering were unrecognizable. I could go on for paragraphs about the bands that fell off but I’d hate to spoil you with too much of my uncanny observations. But the band that I felt was the most unforgivable of the bunch? Easily Anathema.
Even after the “Crestfallen/Serenades” era I kind of lost interest. Gone was the death, here was the doom. They tried the death/doom thing again with Eternity but I was a big Darren White fan and thought this record sounded like they were just trying to keep an obligation to old fans. And after? Holy shit. I know they gained a respectable amount of success by becoming a Radiohead clone but fucking yuck. It has the same appeal to me that later albums by people like John Cale did that were themed like a Jimmy Buffet album-music that people who gave up listen to. I don’t mean suicide, but the people who just fucking accept life and stop trying. Boring fucking people. Boring fucking albums.
Early Anathema sounded like none of their peers. The tones, the way Darren blended pained clean vocals with harsh growls, the song structures. Just genuinely miserable, lovelorn death/doom. With recordings like this I guess there really is no need to try to repeat yourself so kudos to them for sipping on tropical drinks or whatever my perception of their later work (probably mistakenly) is.
Pungent Stench - Club Mondo Bizzare
Pungent Stench’s appeal to me wasn’t just in the tongue in cheek lyrics or delightfully fucked up aesthetics, but also in that they crafted earworms that had, for lack of a better word, swagger. Death metal with a sleazy rock n roll soul, well before the whole “death n roll” thing took off. Then the drama began. After Club Mondo Bizarre there were issues and the band broke up, only to reunite years later with the drummer of Belphegor.
And it sounded like the drummer of Belphegor. All blasts, no groove. Vocals weren’t as recognizably twisted. The songs, while well constructed, just could not hold my interest. They would go on to do another record that, I’m told, is closer to the classic sound but I never gave it a shot. Nowadays you mostly hear about them due to legal shit between members, with Schirenc touring as “Schirenc Plays Pungent Stench” though I think even that’s been halted. A sad ending overall.
And that’s that. I could have listed plenty of bands like this (Enslaved after Frost, Dissection after Storm of the Lights Bane etc) but you get the picture. There’s nothing objectively wrong with any of these bands after the albums I listed, or any band that we lose interest in after certain records. We have the power to say “enough is enough” when it comes to our listening habits. Because very fucking obviously no one is telling Fenriz that. See you in two.
