Odious Hipster Vomit - "Quantos Possunt ad Satanitatem Trahunt" Review (0%)
Credit goes where credit is due, Quantos Possunt ad Satanitatem Trahunt doesn't suck as much balls as Gorgoroth's following effort turd, the utterly risible Instinctus Bestialis.
But that alone does not good music make.
Neither do "edgy" "satanic" Latin names, Pantera riffs played in a tremolo fashion, or Infernus claiming to be the "new Satanic Hitler" in various interviews.
The sad truth is that Quantos Possunt ad Satanitatem Trahunt is hipster music, and I mean that in the worst possible way (Liturgy, Weakling and Wolves in the Burzum Clone Room level shit).
I say hipster music because it's dressed up (unironically) like early Mayhem worship on the outside, but this makeover is pure aesthetics. There is no understanding of the composition or content that made Mayhem great.
Instead it's standard Metallica/Manowar/Pantera speed metal, slowed down by 1/4, played in tremolo, and with some of the exact same riff transitions used by Euronymous on De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. Songs are standard format, very busy with lots of "extreme" drumming and "raw" riffing, but no concepts that tickle the brain or even amuse the gut.
On the surface, it sounds like a second tier Mayhem clone. But beneath the bravado, Quantos Possunt ad Satanitatem Trahunt doesn't even manage that.
It's the standard punk/deathcore/post-rock fusion mess that hipsters adore, dressed up in a Oslo, 1994 fashion.
Gorgoroth seems really desperate to appear like they "belong" in the black metal scene, but rather than play good music they instead opt for the typical Watain formula of copying the aesthetics while completely forgoing the unique atmosphere that makes black metal so special.
Odious Hipster Vomit
Experienced reviewers wince at tryhard "edgy" titles like "Quantos Possunt ad Satanitatem Trahunt" because they indicate advertising, not a coherent statement from the band. This album might as well be a can of pureed, processed, sugar and aspartame added, preservative enhanced mallcore.
Quantos Possunt ad Satanitatem Trahunt: Droning misery. Constant yet feeble drumming. "Harsh" background screams with predictable rhythms. Stupid lyrics that alternate between "Hail Satan", "Praise Satan" and "Satan my Master".
If this is Satan's music, I'm getting a Bible.
Interestingly, other than the fast strumming, this music is identical to the mediocre crap that came out of the late speed metal era, including quite a few riffs that are based on Pantera songs but, to distinguish them, random notes get tossed in every few seconds.
When you think it can't get any worse, they do a "dramatic" pause and then start up, or throw in "melodic" blackened mallcore riffs that are about as new as erosion.
Quantos Possunt ad Satanitatem Trahunt, much like the rest of Gorgoroth's discography, represents all that is odious in music: an imitation of the surface configuration and emotional tropes of a genre not only while not understanding what the genre and its founders valued, but without even trying to make coherence out of the noise.
It is not surprising that Watain's brand of "blackened deathcore" and Dimmu Borgir's emo leanings took over from this weakened form of black metal, because Quantos is nothing more than directionless "extreme music, man!" that apes the past but approaches none of its value or even ability to communicate.
In comparison to a masterpiece like Darkthrone's Under a Funeral Moon, Quantos Possunt ad Satanitatem Trahunt is incoherent posing.
Even in comparison to Darkthrone's thousand of copycats, Quantos still sucks because at least the copycats are honest with themselves and their audience.
Avoid this hipster vomit.
Quantos Possunt ad Satanitatem Trahunt score: 0/100.
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