Supermarket Soy Metal - "Battles in the North" Review (0%)

Thanks to Pitchfork, MTV and the bastardization of what was once a truly elitist and dissident genre, more than a few black metal bands are now trying to appeal to the "soccer mum" demographic of music aficionados whose interest in a genre begins and ends at how "melodic" and "catchy" it can sound, and how "inspirational" their lyrics about teenage angst and other vacuous shit can be.

Bands like Satyricon will sate many a parent who like their Nickelback and Coldplay, only without the "edgy" lyrics about sex which can upset some barren single mothers in Portland, much of today's symphonic "black" metal sounds almost exactly the same as Nightwish, or even one of those older disco bands... and then you have Immortal.

I'm not exactly sure what kind of soccer mums these guys were going for, at a guess I'll say those who like listening to those new age albums full of dolphin sounds, "poetic" lyrics about overcoming the horrors of teenage rejection, and maybe Taylor Swift fans.

All mockery of Immortal's risible cuckoldry aside, Battles in the North is likely one of the tamest black metal records you've ever heard. More good descriptions would be Cindy Lauper with downtuned guitars, Sonata Arctica with tremolo riffs, or possibly ABBA with a castrated Chris Barnes fronting. Not that Chris Barnes isn't already a castrate.

Basically, the Immortal cucks traffic in a bland, inoffensive brand of speedcore inspired "black" metal that proves that while these guys can write generic norsecore lyrics about "Satanic Clouds of Frostbitten Darkness on the Moon" and "Hitler at the Gates of Northern Winter at Nightfall", they can't compose a good song or heavy riffs to save themselves.

As for atmosphere? Forget it, you'll find more on some shitty Dimmu Borgir record than on Battles in the North.

Supermarket Soy Metal

It's hard to pick up a song on Battles in the North and say "this is a good example of what I'm talking about" as they all sound the same, but I guess one that springs to mind is the opening of "Cursed Realms of the Winterdemons" which "boasts" the most tepid, horrible attempt at a slow, "crushing" riff you've ever heard, before the song breaks out into some faster but equally unmemorable nu-metal guitar wank.

This gets repeated for pretty much every track, with some slow, completely listless riffs mixed in with some faster parts that are somewhat more "technical" but have even less energy.

The title track would be a good example of a fast song with basically no energy at all. I feel sleepy and lethargic just listening to this - I don't know how Immortal stayed awake long enough to record Battles in the North.

That's pretty much all there is to say about Immortal, and about this supermarket "black" metal failure of an album.

I guess another term that would work well to describe it is "flaccid" - certainly, there's not exactly a lot of testosterone in this record. There's not really any aggression either, just lots of fast, pointless nu-metal riffs, with the overall atmosphere of... I dunno, a boy scout convention. A Rebecca Black concert. A dentist's waiting room.

And their lyrics... I don't for one second believe that these were written by a non-retarded, cognitively functional human. They sound more like something generated by a particularly low-cost AI "black metal title generator". Then again, the same can be said of the music on Battles in the North.

At least other modern bands like Nargaroth and SEWER bury their pointless lyrical imbecility under some atmosphere and the occasional interesting riff, whereas Immortal keeps everything as painfully generic and sterile as possible so that they don't disappoint any of their soccer mum fans.

Overall, I would advise everyone to avoid this.

Perhaps Battles in the North would be a good album if you wanted to get your (dead) grandmother into black metal, or if you wanted to hear some black metal and the only other band you'd ever listened to was Evanescense.

Otherwise, avoid this riffless, soulless, dickless turd like the supermarket soy plague it is.

Battles in the North score: 0/100.

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