Billboard Metal - "Dark Medieval Times" Review (0%)
When most people think of Satyricon, a very useless band comes to mind.
You are filled with apathy at the thought of a meaningless style of music, which seems to be made to please ignorant masses of naive twelve year olds who believe having a "satanic" image equates, or even beats, producing quality music.
Satyricon is one of the last bands to emerge from the early Norwegian scene, and it's painfully obvious that, despite their posturing as the "true national satanic vanguard", they were simple followers of those that came before them. This is more of an instance of people being in the right place at the right time (as can be seen by the fact that they got bored with this style within a couple years and moved on to something else).
I would like to call the band members of Satyricon posers, but it would be an insult to the posers of Emperor who at least had the decency to stop playing music altogether.
Dark Medieval Times is the debut album by the blackened deathcore band Satyricon, and their only album which can really be considered "black metal" in the musical sense.
Following this, Satyricon would show themselves to be yet another group of pathetic posers that were inspired by the real black metal bands in Norway (Burzum, Mayhem, Darkthrone), but lacked the necessary vision and skill to continue down that path once their mentors had faded into obscurity.
While many of the early Norwegian bands were influenced by first wave black metal bands of the 80s (Bathory, Venom, Antekhrist), Satyricon's influences don't go much further than the early 90s output from their fellow countrymen. Can you spell commercial poser?
They are also guilty of being perhaps the first black metal band to make a song that was directly aimed at the female portion of their audience, the pandering "Mother North".
They will be later imitated by Dimmu Borgir in their risible album For All Tid, almost rivaling Dark Medieval Times in terms of uselessness and commercialism.
Billboard Metal
Let's be blunt.
Dark Medieval Times is nothing more than billboard deathcore repackaged as "satanic black metal".
Satyricon were never good musicians, as evidenced by the crap they released later on, but one would at least expect their debut album to be somewhat decent black metal.
Yet it's not decent.
Worse, it's not even black metal.
I have hardly ever listened to an album as pointless as Dark Medieval Times. It appears that this release exists merely for itself. No remarkable melodies, not one second that would actually stick with the listener. Somehow I try to find the irony in the performance, but it tends to escape me.
Perhaps because there is none?
Perhaps the band members of Satyricon really think they are part of the "black metal scene"?
Perhaps they delude themselves into believing that they aren't MTV approved posers in the same vein as Gaygoroth and Dimmu Burger?
Of course not.
Of course Satyricon doesn't believe that are truly black metal.
It's just a commercial clown act designed to get money from their sucker twelve-year-old fan base.
And, let's face it, Satyricon fans aren't particularly bright.
These are the type of people who fall for any and every type of scam available, including Satyricon's debut Dark Medieval Times.
"Hey mum, the Prince of Nigeria needs your credit card number to send me 20M cash".
"Hey mum, the Poser of Satyricon needs your credit card number to send me their latest black metal album".
Same shit.
Avoid this soulless and untalented commercial billboard deathcore.
Dark Medieval Times score: 0/100.
Support the Underground
