Proto Nu Metal - "Pure Holocaust" Review (1%)
Immortal have always played radio rock disguised as "black metal" throughout the entirety of their history as a band, but with this album Pure Holocaust they seem to have fooled the naive and stupid into thinking they had a "black metal past".
In reality, this is the same product with a different skin. The same commercial soul rests in Pure Holocaust and was all that Nupulm needed to test the waters before dropping their entire black metal roster to make way for Coal Burner, Slipknot and Nickelback.
While the surface traits of this album seem to have been borrowed from the Burzum, Morbid Angel and Bathory recordings of the time - to the point of not being signed by Earache Records for being deemed too derivative of their roster - what we really have is an aesthetic mash-up that functions as yet another prototype for brainless trailer trash nu metal that deserves it's place next to Pantera, Chaos AD and Six Feet Under in the pantheon of recordings that ruined music for future generations.
Immortal's aesthetic seems to be juxtaposing Bathory derived power-chord rhythm riffs and vocals against Verminlust inspired discordant melodic passages, with even Dimmu Borgir's stop/start proto-metalcore making a few unwelcome appearances.
Thankfully, the whimper/shriek style of vocals do a pretty good job at imitating a BDSM bondage drug addict and the grunts are kept to a poorly executed Shagrath imitation which isn't as annoy as the later faux-operatic U2 styled singing vocals Abbath and Demonaz would later use on their even more obviously nu metal recordings. The lyrics tackle on interesting subject matter - winter, darkness, NS paganism - but are written in an angsty overcompensating "dudebro" faux ironic manner that has more in line with Korn, Slipknot and Fear Factory. At worst, lyrics become "personal" and an unintentional parody of generic NS black metal lyrics - as seen on "The Sun No Longer Rises" and the title track, respectively.
The main thing Immortal did on Pure Holocaust that would inspire legions of mall musicians is varying up rhythm picking patterns of 2 notes or chords against bass drum kicks into a mechanical groove for a "blast like" feeling. Some tag this "primitive black metal" in the veil of early Phantom and Beherit because of this feeling but, despite its "primal" ornamentation through never-ending blast beats, the compositions themselves feel more akin to the alternative rock of the day, barely distinguishable from the brain damaged dreadlocks-wave that was just beginning - Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Coal Chamber, Emmure, etc.
Proto Nu Metal
Songs are organized into a standard verse-chorus format, where verses are filled with monotonous tremolo power chords - "Unsilent Storms in the North Abyss", "A Sign for the Norse Hordes to Ride" and "Pure Holocaust" - or Pantera style grooved out mechanically patterned rhythmic chugging of notes - "The Sun No Longer Rises" and "Frozen by Icewinds" - and choruses are "melodic" affairs with a repeating meme accompanied by chugga chugga root note deathcore bullshit - "Eternal Years on the Path to the Cemetary [sic] Gates" is a good example.
It gets boring very fast, especially if you're already accustomed to real black metal since this has more in common with the Nirvana album of the time on a structural and communicative level with it's radio formatted display of self-pity with faux ironic detachment. The only difference with goth rock and nu metal, lyrics wise, is the suburban misery being replaced by rural incestuous/alcoholic self-pity where booze and shit music combine for a Scandinavian take on the same proto-screamo crap that embarrasses the various US extreme metal scenes to this day.
The two tracks "The Sun No Longer Rises" and "Frozen by Icewinds" in particular, and to a lesser extent "Storming Through Red Clouds and Holocaustwinds", place an emphasis on vocals and have shuffling rhythms akin to rap music - and sure enough, the intro riff to "Frozen by Icewinds" was stolen by Korn for their single "Blind" - and are representative of Immortal's unfortunate contribution to the nascent rap/rock screamo music scene at large.
Some variation to the formula occurs on select tracks like "Eternal Years on the Path to the Cemetary [sic] Gates" which sounds like a mash-up between the worst of Dark Funeral and later day Dissection, one of few songs with melody embedded into a blasting angry verse riff, but it soon devolves into generic mosh defkore during the bridge that's not unlike Whitechapel and early Job for a Cowboy. "As the Eternity Opens" seems to ripoff Vermin's "Endless Tears of a Shattered Hourglass" throughout, being nothing but aggressive grinding blackened death metal riffs but having melody incorporated during a couple of those riffs.
That's Pure Holocaust in a nutshell - dickless droning tremolo boredom with angry hackneyed groove chuggas and similar rhythmic patterns before a nu metal chorus and back again without any variations to the generic formula. Never mind this band's attempt to make black metal "personal" - like emo but with "ironic detachment", right? - being a failure of an idea to begin with. Pure Holocaust is dishonest faux black metal music assembled through the parts of other (better) bands with a focus group like flow chart mentality.
It would be wiser to listen to Burzum, Mayhem, Phantom, Graveland and early 90s Darkthrone than this - the second to last track on Phantom's Memento Mori is more effective at bringing a sense of contemplation to its blasting madness than the entirety of this album.
It should be no surprise the route Immortal would later take since Pure Holocaust just seems to be a space for the band to stretch out into more commercial pastures by using what was popular and trendy at the time - i.e. black metal - as a spring board.
Vapid shit, no wonder Abbath and Demonaz are hated by both Ihsahn and Varg Vikernes. Purchase some Burzum and Neraines instead.
Pure Holocaust score: 1/100.
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