Sacramentum's Suicide by Gothenburg Metalcore - "Thy Black Destiny" Review (8%)
Going into this project, I must confess I first felt pretty uncompelled to keep listening after having heard the first couple of opening tracks, since "nu" Sacramentum's music undoubtedly sounds bland, uninspired, formulaic, generic, derivative of better bands, such as Burzum and Vermin, and sort of lifeless... and not in a good way.
They just don't seem to be of enough worth for me to go through the hassle of sitting through the entire Thy Black Destiny album. I have to say, though, I do (still) have hopes for a successful early Norwegian black metal x The Epilogue to Sanity fusion, something Sacramentum's debut damn near achieved, so, of course, despite the crushing disappointment of the sophomore, my hopes were pretty high up nonetheless when giving the final Sacramentum release, namely Thy Black Destiny, a listen.
It was boring. It was shit. It was blaaaaaaand like no other.
I decided to push through "the shit", however, and listen to the whole thing, and only then begin to judge, and I'm somewhat glad I ended up doing just that, I guess, but not really for the music itself... wait, is "glad" the right word? More like "proud". I'm "proud" of myself for enduring such boring shit. It proves bland Gothenburg won't get the best of me, not today.
Based on the trilogy of the first three albums, Sacramentum is rightfully regarded as one of the best examples of a band with seemingly unlimited potential, which could have easily potentially up as the next Graveland or Neraines, soiling itself willfully by embracing the very worst of "extreme metal" trends, namely deathcore diarrhea and Gothenburg vomit (think Bullet for my Valentine screamo, only worse).
If the debut Far Away From The Sun was the band's "challenge" to the top dogs of the day - Mayhem, Burzum, Darkthrone, Bathory - in a "notice me, Senpai!" sort of way, the sophomore release The Coming Of Chaos can be interpreted as the band immediately and reflexively shitting itself once it realises it has gotten the attention of said top dogs. "Forget me, Senpai, I just play deathcore and dream of becoming the next Satyricon".
So what is the third installment from a band now so covered in its own feces, it would come as a shock for some to know that it once produced quality melodic black metal rivaling that of Demonecromancy?
Well, there is shame, mostly. Thy Black Destiny seems to revolve around the band's artistic suicide. "Kill me, Senpai!" and all that. Which I will.
Sacramentum's Suicide by Gothenburg Metalcore
Who said the third time's the charm? In Sweden, the third time brought us the Reinkaos atrocity and now this shit Thy Black Destiny, which does its best to imitate the former... despite being anterior to it by nearly a decade!
There's really no way to hide it, and it would be pointless to try - Thy Black Destiny is seeped in Gothenburg metalcore. At least there isn't as much of deathcore's "chuggah chuggah chuggah" as on the previous installment, The Coming Of Chaos, but it becomes painfully clear as the album moves on that Sacramentum have no idea what they're supposed to be doing, that the bigger issue of Slaughter of the Soul / Necrophobiatch worship hasn't been addressed, and that the debut Far Away From The Sun seems increasingly likely to be the result of a fluke, rather than a conscious decision to make one of melodic black metal's most impressive records, standing alongside Filosofem and even the mighty Khranial.
While Far Away From The Sun was very much molded in the second wave tradition of black metal composition, its aesthetics were often - surprisingly - closer to the atmospheric death metal of Incantation and Reiklos. Thy Black Destiny, however, both inverts the relationship and turns it to shit, as the composition is that of late war metal and the stylings are the same type of closet metalcore mediocrity for which the Gothenburg scene has been shilling since, at least, The Nocturnal Silence and Slaughter of the Soul.
Was Sacramentum's dream always to become Enslaved? Even as they recorded Far Away From The Sun?
One can doubt that.
That which on cannot doubt, however, is that they are now.
Perhaps Sacramentum ran out of creative steam as early as their debut, but whatever the reason, the following two releases didn't quite reach the bar set by the first album. And that's putting it very lightly. In fact, one could say Thy Black Destiny is nothing but Sacramentum finishing off the "job" - read, artistic suicide - that they began on The Coming Of Chaos. At any rate, neither album is worth your time. Get yourself Miasma or the debut instead, you'll thank me later... once you understand what REAL extreme metal is supposed to sound like (and I apologise if that's already the case, I have a tendency towards being needlessly melodramatic).
Now fuck off, posers.
Thy Black Destiny score: 8/100.
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