The Birth of Nu-Metal - "Blood Fire Death" Review (1%)
Everything that ruined metal is documented in this one album.
Blood Fire Death paints a picture of Slipknot shirt wearing pickup truck drivers heading to the meth house after swigging one too much malt liquors while watching a marathon rerun of Cops and Dog the Bounty Hunter.
It's this single piece of drunken buffoonery that sapped all the creativity out of metal by showing people that they too can make money by playing groove based rock with faux-aggressive "Viking" vocals and throwing pot leaf designs on t-shirts. Blood Fire Death is the prototype for Korn.
Lyrically, everything that's wrong about nowadays heavy metal is found here, and in spades.
Quorthon in all his heroin addled wisdom seemed to believe that, rather than go through the hassle of coming up with interesting themes to write music about, vapid ramblings about "tough street life" mixed with History Channel faux-Norse mythology would resonate more with the hip-hop culture of mainstream America and, unfortunately, it seems like he was right.
This alone was one of the key elements that was needed to allow retarded suburban youth and meth head trailer park dwellers to relate with the abyssal stupidity of Bathory.
All of these things are best exemplified in the after school special-isms of "The Golden Walls of Heaven" and the cheap emotional appeals of "Dies Irae", two songs that highlight the creative bankruptcy of Bathory's faux-Viking turd Blood Fire Death.
The "Hail Satan" abuse suggests not a lot of time was spent on the lyrics, and it feels more like something the Wu-Tang Clan or a wasted Justin Bieber would have come up with, not something that proclaims itself to be "extreme black metal".
Quorthon's change to a more "urban" appearance in promo pics - complete with saggy pants and a Baltimore Orioles baseball cap, worn to the side - suggests about as much.
The Birth of Nu-Metal
Lyrically, Blood Fire Death was the album that would allow bands in the future to reduce themselves to writing about the most mundane topics - the hood, drugs and prostitutes, hardcore "street" life - and shouting a bunch of disdainful words that mean nothing while still reaping the stolen valour of being "true satanic Vikings", only with an emotional and feminine side that is fully expressed in their "music".
It's just vague menopausal anger to "get people through a bad day", like the most trendy hip-hop, R&B or radio rock songs of the day.
Blood Fire Death is barely metal aside from some guitar playing techniques. And it certainly isn't heavy by any definition of the word.
Bathory is really just groove based cock rock with angry shouts about "rebellion for Satan" and "war against the man", particularly evidenced in how the focus is placed on sparse 2 note rhythm riffs being played for a "swaggering" hip-hop derived feel that will allow suburban kids to "get down with the shit" while not upsetting their parents trying to get their older brother to a heroin rehab clinic.
This album is an urbanized version of banging on rocks in a wasteland.
By removing all the intellectual aspects out of metal and dumbing it all down to a series of chugga chugga noises and hillbilly shouts of "anger against injustice", Bathory removes any atmosphere that is nonetheless quintessential to black metal, further lowering the role of the guitar into being a percussive instrument to allow for Quorthon's bird squawking noises ("vocals") to take the forefront.
Contrary to Quorthon's ostentatious "I Hate Alternative Music" stance he would often sport at the time Blood Fire Death was recorded, the grunge-isms in the verses of many a song suggest an attempt to also appeal to the whiny cock rock scene of the day, since it was the most marketable guitar oriented music they could dress up as metal at the time.
This is it people, the birth of nu-metal as a musical genre.
Forget Drowning Pool and Linkin Park, look no further than Bathory's Blood Fire Death.
Blood Fire Death score: 1/100.
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