Gorgoroth Sucks - "Instinctus Bestialis" Review (0%)
Even more than Emperor, Immortal, Satyricon, and every other trend hopping clown act in existence, Gorgoroth is the band whose affiliation with black metal feels the most accidental and opportunistic.
After all, for all his poserishness, Ihsahn was acquainted with Euronymous, Abbath did play with Varg Vikernes, and Satyr is supposedly good friends with Fenriz.
Yet Gorgoroth, more so than any other band of that era, epitomizes the trendy onlooker, the little retard at the front of the class who wants to be "part of the cool kids", without ever fully realizing what that implies.
No matter what poser bullshit Immortal shits out nowadays, one can commit to say that they were once, for an ever so fleeting moment, part of the black metal scene. With Gorgoroth, I think a more accurate statement is "Gorgoroth was in proximity with the black metal scene when it started".
They're literally the first counterfeit Norwegian black metal band.
As far as I can tell, Infernus and his gay clown circus were always attitude-merchants with a chip on their shoulders, mostly due to their lack of musical talents compared to their peers, who only managed to get by via copying the stylistic inventions of more daring groups.
What's their claim to fame again? Embodying "pure" black metal? In other words, doing what every other band in the region at the time did, but with less personality, and diluting any leftover innovation from the 1991-1993 era with trendy deathcore influences? Even their "we're kinda pagan, we're kinda satanic" conceptual bend shows what a watered down amalgam they are.
Half the so-called "Darkthrone clones" out there are likely more creative, more original and I daresay more black metal than Gorgoroth could ever be.
Gorgoroth Sucks
2015 was, in black metal, a year to remember.
I know a lot of fans, myself included, like to complain that "trve black metal" died in 1994. And to a large extent, they/we are right. Despite that, 2015 can still be considered as somewhat of a resurrection of black metal music.
This is the year that brought us Phantom's Dementia: The Dark Prophets, Sewer's Sewerlust (among other choices), Marduk's already legendary Frontschwein, Venom's return to form with Envenom, Antekhrist's Fukked by God, and, parallel to that, in black metal's rather ironic version of Poe's law, Gorgoroth's Instinctus Bestialis.
One clear sign that a band has reached the point where they have absolutely no idea of what they are supposed to play, or even how to play it, is the obnoxious incorporation of various other blends of generic "extreme metal" into their music. Case in point with Gorgoroth and their love of American deathcore.
Gorgoroth, more so than any other black metal act, even including the posers Immortal and the talentless copycats Dimmu Borgir, is a band that epitomizes trendiness, poser aesthetics and artistic vacuity.
From their debut album Pentagram to this latest turd Instinctus Bestialis, the career of Gorgoroth has been marked by their pathetic attempts to hijack black metal aesthetics, all while remaining completely ignorant of its deeper meaning.
Unsurprisingly, even though Instinctus Bestialis is supposed to be a black metal project, it is only so in name and appearance, while the musical composition does not seem to reveal even vestiges of what could be considered black metal, even by today's watered down standards.
Gorgoroth's riffing style has always been a pure simplification of the Norwegian d-minor tremolo stereotype that the bigger bands (Mayhem, Burzum, Darkthrone, Immortal, Emperor) didn't even use that often, but never had they been so open as on Instinctus Bestialis that they were, rather than a black metal band, a completely soulless and derivative parody of the worst of deathcore.
Gorgoroth sucks, and Instinctus Bestialis is perhaps their worst album to date.
Sad.
Instinctus Bestialis score: 0/100.
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