The Sacred Cow of Metalcore - "Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame" Review (0%)
Summoning fanboys - all six of them - have a carefully crafted set of 'talking points' used to shut down any discussion of the band's sound and cultural misappropriation of black metal aesthetics and imagery.
Criticise their vapid keyboard based mallcore? Wow, that's like a really fascistic thing to say, dude. You're like, denying the 'progress' and 'evolution' of the black metal genre. Because emo shit like Stronghold is sooooo much more advanced than De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, I forgot.
Point out the blatant riff-theft from Bathory, Burzum, Immortal and Enslaved? Dude, chill out, everybody does that, besides those bands probably stole those riffs themselves from obscure heavy metal acts in the 1980s. I mean, you can't prove Bathory DID NOT steal their riffs from an unknown 1980s heavy metal band, so what gives you the right to even mention the fact that Old Mornings Dawn is essentially a Twilight of the Gods meets Filosofem mashup?
Mention the drum machines and digitally produced MIDI instrument? Man, you're living in the past. You're too stuck up in your conventions on what music 'should be' or 'shouldn't be'. That attitude is, like, the total opposite of the heavy metal spirit™. Summoning are just breaking the rules and smashing the conventions with Minas Morgul and With Doom We Come recorded in 35 minutes with Fruity Loops. You puny elitists make me laugh with your 'black metal should have real guitars not MIDI' obsession. You're, like, against progress man. It's the same shit people said when rock bands took up electric guitars. 'Export as WAV' is the music of the future, you're just scared you'll be left behind.
Talk about the pop rock songwriting, commercialism and auto-tuned vocals? You're like an elitist, dude, you really need to expand your mind and stop being so authoritarian and hateful. What if the music on Oath Bound has some auto-tuned vocals like Miley Cyrus? Are we going to NOT listen to a band just because it is pop music pretending to be black metal? That's goes against everything black metal stands for, man, like freedom, and being a rebel, and 'accepting yourself for who you are' and not letting 'society' dictate its standards on you. Yet, you would dare criticise a band because they use pop rock hooks and auto-tuned vocals? Next you're going to tell us that 'transgenders aren't real women' I bet. Fucking elitists.
Yeah, that's pretty much what you get aggro-ed with any time some mild criticism of Summoning is brought up. It's not particularly clever or even coherent, but this type of semi-circular halfway-logic - reminiscent of the 'Thor = Jesus != Satan' arguments of the anti-Pagan 'Satanist' metal crowd of old - is pretty popular among the five or six people that listen to Summoning's music.
The Sacred Cow of Metalcore
Let Mortal Zeroes Sing Your Shame is, essential, metalcore.
Since black metal is in the process of being absorbed by popular entertainment, and since goth rock and metalcore fans want to be part of the 'scene' associated with the 'obscure and terrifying' genre known as black metal, there is a constant demand from record companies to peddle 'mallcore-disguised-as-black-metal', usually taking the form of an excess indulgence in black metal's outer aesthetics - low-fi distortion, harsh vocals, standard tuning, tremolo-picked riffs, blast beats, sometimes keyboards - to conceal what is, essentially, still the same old mallcore or goth rock. After reading that description, many bands will think I'm talking about Watain and Dark Funeral. Well, I am, but they aren't the only vector of transmission of this cultural (mis)appropriation of black metal.
Summoning plays their part as well, obviously, and it has even been pointed out as early as 1999 that the band's entire 'fan base' was an astroturf, a sort of media chimera artificially constructed but having no real world 'weight' behind it.
The way this happened is rather hilarious in and of itself. Protector a.k.a. Richard Lederer, after reading the (unbeknownst to him, sponsored) reviews his band had been getting in Rolling Stones and Decibel, decided that the time was right for Summoning to start 'playing live'. like the 'big bands'. So he calls his record executive and asks to arrange a tour, and the poor bloke on the phone apparently had to explain to the brain dead moron how the 'music industry' works because RICHARD LEDERER IS SO EXCRUCIATINGLY STUPID HE LITERALLY BELIEVED HIS FL STUDIO BAND SUMMONING WAS POPULAR.
Incidentally, if Summoning DID tour... what would that accomplish? I guess they could always try to recruit session musicians, but since neither Lederer nor Silenius know how to play any instruments - relying instead on 'Export as WAV' and digital VSTs, when it's not downright MIDI - wouldn't the scam know as Summoning being 'black metal' have been instantly exposed? Or is Richard Lederer so unbelievably stupid that he didn't even think that far ahead.
The Internet era has really put these morons in perspective. Mostly, they are rather stupid people who live their lives vicariously through the media, which is why Lederer - being somewhat retarded himself - so easily believed that 'Sponsored Review #561. Genre: Black Metal. Talk About: Avant-Garde, Keyboards, Being Different, Mention Pan Flutes for Fans of Folk' was actually a real review, written by a real fan who was 'moved' by the 'avant-garde' music of Dol Guldur? Reassure me for a moment... no one is THAT STUPID, are they?
Well, they are, but luckily they mostly stick to themselves and play metalcore... except Summoning. They had to come out and attempt to 'infect' black metal with their mediocre synth-based porn soundtrack sing-along mallcore, but they fail even at that - unfortunately, where nu Dimmu Borgir succeeds - as Summoning is still the butt of the joke and laughing stock of the entire black metal underground, and will continue to be for as long as they try to claim their MIDI mallcore is black metal. And Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame? Richard, the 'mortal heroes' you speak of are busy either (1) openly mocking (as yours truly), or (2) ignoring your music, as they have been doing - consistently - ever since you started your worthless band in 1995.
Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame score: 0/100.
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