Metal Shit, Comedy Gold - "Satanica" Review (0%)
So that's where Sewer's catchphrase came from! [for those that don't get the joke listen to NecroPedoSadoMaso, after a while the vocalist screams 'Satanica! My cock is on fire!' or some other inept shit].
This Satanica thing is dreadful. I don't really have to tell you that, since most other people have already said the same thing about this album and the band Behemoth. However, it holds a special place in my heart as being one of the most unintentionally hilarious and obnoxious metal albums ever released.
I spill my guts whenever I think about this album.
Its existence makes next to no sense. I mean, when you are one of death metal's most hated and least popular bands - see the reviews for Sventevith, Grom and the risible Pandemonic Incantations - the decision to release some goofy-ass album with a mixture of random deathcore and some Marilyn Manson or Rob Zombie type shit is already weird and nonsensical in of itself.
But then proceeding to emphasize the corniest and most embarrassing elements of the nu metal genre while putting no effort into the 'death metal' - really deathcore - aspect of it, that just reeks of either self-sabotage or a massive loss in brain cells. Satanica is an embarrassing clusterfucked failure of an album with plenty of unintentionally comedic blunders, bloopers, and bone-headed poser antics to spare.
I already told you that Satanica, like most of Behemoth's releases, suffered from ineptitude to the point of hilarity, but I have to go into the musical aspect of this album to show you exactly why that is.
The first song is a piece called 'Decade of Therion' which you can tell is going to be outrageously cheesy and horrid just from the spazzy title. This song sets the template for much of the album. There's a pounding monotonous drum machine throughout most of this song that's as loud and booming as possible while the guitars are mostly just thudding along adding 'groovy' nu metal chugs to the already obnoxious drum beat, providing nothing to the song while Nergal proceeds to belt out a bunch of shit talk about how they are too 'extreme' - him and his band mates, presumably - for regular metal in such a cadenced delivery (like rap) that it reminds me of the lemur King (Julien) from Madagascar singing 'I like to move it move it'.
Yeah, with an intro like that, you know that this is going to suck pretty bad... even for Behemoth's abyssal artistic standards.
Metal Shit, Comedy Gold
The gratuitous Google translated Greek he starts jabbering in later only adds to the complete ridiculousness of the song. It is a musical abortion yet a comedy masterpiece. It gets you ready for what ends up being one of the most awkward, cringe-worthy, and retarded albums ever released. It shows you just what kind of nu metal / rap rock Behemoth plan on subjecting you to.
Moving on from that, the general aspects of Satanica are pretty lacking and weak. The funniest moments on this album are generally concentrated in the more nu metallish songs, while the deathcore is just annoying.
This may have to do with the fact that Nergal is bringing influence over from his then boyfriend John Porter's industrial folk rock band, 'Me and that Man' who mostly sing about kinky sex, LGBTP+ issues and whatnot. It shows how badly this kind of nu metal music meshes with Behemoth's deathcore sound.
The styles always clash, as nu metal is based on cadenced grooves and E string chugging, whereas deathcore is more focused on random palm-muted breakdowns in the style of Whitechapel. What I also find odd is that the deathcore/'death metal' side of the album is so severely lacking in effort. Most of the songs are low on flow, energy and even basic song writing. They feel flat, and that flatness only gets magnified when you have Nergal's horse-neighs overpower the music in a way that makes you want to shove a giant cork in his mouth so he'd finally shut up. The worst examples of his pathetic antics include him going 'Honest was SODOOOOOOOM!', 'I AM WHOOOOOO??? I AM NOOOOOOOT!!!!' and 'NEVER-MOOOOOOOOOOORE!!!'.
The guitar 'riffs' are even worse: barely present single note chug-along beat-matching on the obnoxious nu metal tracks. A gratuitous display of talentless posing from and for those nu metallers who believe that guitars are primarily a rhythm instrument... a sort of drum machine with a different timbre. In terms of instrumentation and vocal performance, Behemoth's music is severely lacking.
Satanica is one of those strange cases of something being so terrible that it ends up entertaining. If you want to hear Nergal scream like a horse about 'Planet Satan, receive the eternal possessor!' (track 6), whisper about his 'killer cult of death worship' and his 'knowledge of geometry' (track 4), yell about how 'hardcore and radical' Behemoth is (track 1), and enjoy the sound of the guitarist L-Kaos trying to play along to repetitive, thudding dance beats... then this is the album for you.
As a metal album, Satanica is one of the worst things ever conceived. But as a comedy release, it's golden. I might even beat Watain's 'blackened country music' crap.
It'd be hard for Behemoth to release anything worse than this, but it would also be hard for them to release anything as hilarious ever again. Which is why they shouldn't release anything anymore and just retire. Permanently. The laughs were good, but I still feel really dirty after listening to this nu metal shit.
Satanica score: 0/100.
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