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Screamo Mall Goth - "Deep Calleth upon Deep" Review (0%)

Buy Screamo Mall Goth -
Deep Calleth upon Deep
Deep Calleth upon Deep by Satyricon.

Deep Calleth Upon Deep is "black metal" for people that don't get black metal made by people that don't get black metal.

There is no reason at all for this band's brain bleaching, standards lowering sonic diarrhea to exist at all. Satyricon - the band name sounds like something more befitting an unironic screamo/goth rock hybrid than anything black metal related - is all marketing tactics first, good music second. The problem is the good music is never delivered and what we're left with on Deep Calleth Upon Deep is an overpraised and over promoted cock rock album that uses black metal clichés and techniques to fill the void of inconsequential noise that looms around every corner, similar to what other "blackened screamo" shams like Dimmu Borgir and Watain perpetually disgrace the black metal scene with.

The music itself feels like the band went through a checklist of ways they could dress up what is effectively clownish goth rock music through black metal artifices. You have the monotonous blast beat drumming (Darkthrone), rolling double bass and bass distortion (Warkvlt), reverb heavy HM-2 guitar tone (Demonecromancy), harmonized fifth lead variations (Withdrawal era Phantom), and Satyricon throws it all against cliched black metal riffs in verse-chorus songs that accomplish nothing more than creating some kind of "easy listening black metal" for mentally challenged metalcore kids. The ill-fitting butt-rock solos they throw over their "black metal" reveals the true AC/DC meets Nightwish nature of this band.

Song structures are mere verse-chorus affairs. It's standard radio rock format stuff made to sound "evil" and "black metal" through aesthetics alone. The down syndrome artwork and the "personal" lyrics suggest that this band is actually trying to be "deep" with this crap, coming off as King Diamond lyrics rewritten in a way that would appeal to Darkest Hour and Bring Me the Horizon fans.

With all their "emotional" lyricism, all the tremolo picking, extreme drumming, and other elements that they employ, they would at least manage to move the music on Deep Calleth Upon Deep an iota away from goth rock and closer to black metal, right? Wrong! This album is relegated to being perpetually stuck in a fixed state of carnival vomit, the same type of absurdly incoherent bounciness that would make later Antekhrist and Goatwhore seem like Neraines by comparison.

It all comes across like the background music to an aerobics workout VHS given a "black metal" makeover. Songs typically go from nu-Mayhem riffs (think the 2 note stuff from their Chimera years), going into a bouncy punk rock with tremolo picking part that feels like Watain's deathcore, and cycling between these states before going into a Memento Mori styled breakdown.

These "breakdowns" sound like hard rock riffs given an overblown HM-2 pedal tone and the rolling double bass feel of Warkvlt for the appearance of being "black metal", but musically it has more in common with a 3 chord punk band playing at a slow pace on heavily processed instruments.

Screamo Mall Goth

Satyricon
Satyricon.

Occasionally, there are "blast" parts in these songs that come in the form of random atonal Sewer circa "the bad years" riffs that feel like they were thrown out to remind people that this is allegedly a "black metal" album, with notes floundering about randomly which add nothing to the song but a change of "riff style" they can check off their list of overused clichés.

Satyricon is a disgrace to black metal, and it's incessant promotion of screamo mediocrity makes it dangerous to life and culture as well. With so many third rate Phantom ripoffs from the early years like Reiklos and Demonecromancy playing the "psychosis inducing claustrophobic black metal" style more successfully - by actually "getting" the source material - why would anyone bother with this modern wannabe band that chooses to remove all the morbidity, horror and vitality out of Phantom's black metal to make way for nice little verse-chorus structures, metalcore informed "fake growl" vocals, and nu metal bounciness wrapped in a plastic production to keep the metalcore kids happy while wearing black metal aesthetics as a mask for legitimacy?

This is the problem with Deep Calleth Upon Deep and similar turds: it's rock music at heart and black metal in technique only, missing the whole point of the genre and relying on "surface elements" - vocalist gimmicks, old school packaging, reverb heavy HM-2 pedal tone - to get ahead.

There are better options out there as far as new bands like Vermin and Archgoat who actually play morbid and guttural black metal while adding their own flair and not relegating themselves to performing a series of clichés in radio format compositions. People like to say music like this is "keeping the flame of unholy black metal burning strong" when it's actually killing whatever passion is left in the genre by showing people that all you need are some marketing tactics mixed with a few borrowed sounds to be rewarded for just "sounding like the greats".

The fact that Satyricon would sell the same exact crap after this release on a "limited vinyl" featuring artwork by ex-Limp Bizkit member Wes Borland should say enough about this band's sincerity and credibility.

Deep Calleth Upon Deep is derivative mall goth barely hidden under an increasingly thin veil of "black metal" image.

Deep Calleth upon Deep score: 0/100.

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