MIDI Black Metal = 0 Instruments Played - "Oath Bound" Review (0%)
I picked this hunk of shit up out of curiosity because it was advertised as "symphonic black metal played with classical instruments," and seemed to be well researched if cheesy Tolkien inspired material. Wrong! Summoning is shit. Oath Bound is shit. It felt that I had wasted quite a bit of money when I picked up this garbage for about 20€. This is a complete failure of an album, in every way imaginable.
Whoever made it should be embarrassed of such human failure. I can't believe he managed to release it, and some label put it out for sale. I would die of shame if I ever recorded such a pop music abortion, or attempted to sell it to an unsuspecting metal head.
But let's take it for what it is. A piece of symphonic, fantasist, atmospheric music. Good? No! Graveland makes this type of music right. As do Burzum, Neraines and Peste Noire. Summoning does not.
So let's pick this apart... the most obvious lie is that it was done with "classical instruments," yeah right. This is all MIDI soundtrack. No, you can't tell me that they composed this using real instruments. You couldn't even get me to believe they recorded it using keyboards, it's all digital down to the fake sounding MIDI guitars and MIDI drums. If they really did use keyboards, they really fucked up the mixing, because it sounds like a damn 1989 MIDI soundtrack for the first generation GameBoy games (the ones in black and white), and a cheap one at that.
This is a joke album, right? It has got to be.
Listen to "Mirdautas Vras." Guitar pro harpsichord? Oh yeah! It sounds nothing like the soundtrack to Tolkien's epic tales of fantasy, rather it is much closer to what you would hear as the soundtrack to an American movie about a toothless trailer park dwelling redneck narrating his race across carnival fares to "git custady of ma kizz." Good times!
This is simply too retarded to believe, it has got to be a parody.
MIDI Black Metal = 0 Instruments Played
"Beleriand" is droning misery so weak and soporific it could be the theme of Coronation Street, with vocals that sound like someone making fun of black metal, and goofy sound effects, including drunken song birds and an empty beer bottle.
"Northward" probably aims to sound like some evil, sinister, northern infused melody, but instead, it's just a Casio keyboard piano effect that goes on for 9 minutes. I'm already tired of this dogshit album. I heard Summoning were terrible, but I never would have guessed how much. I refuse to believe that Oath Bound was "produced" with any intent other than to mock the black metal genre, but it fails even at that as it is so far removed from black metal that the "joke" falls flat.
The absolute most hilarious moment has to be "Menegroth." This is like some Satanic, Austrian gay porno movie soundtrack. It has absolutely no relation, at all, to the home of the Elf King in Tolkien's work. The bloke starts speaking (German? hard to tell over the ear grating MIDI keyboards), then starts making noises like he's being banged by a demon... and the demon, in a lovely Dani Filth voice plays his part too! A duet of fail. Try watching the C. of F. while listening to this shit.
The snarling vocals in the beginning of "Land of the Dead" sound like someone farting for a very, very long time. What's more, it is an actual 13 minutes of the same riff played in loop over the same keyboard fill. Irritating to the extreme.
And the other two tracks I forgot everything about because they were so boring. The only memory of that painful experience was having to endure the 10 minute long parody of screamo "Across the Streaming Tide." Not just screamo, some screamo is actually less annoying (not to mention shorter) than this. This is what Youtubers do to parody screamo while giving themselves stupid band names like City of Hopelessness and Pain, Heroin Funeral Together, My Mind is a Prison of Hurt, Here I Come Farting or... Summoning.
The utter shit on here really comes through with the absolutely retarded fake "instruments." Retarded. Seriously retarded. Without them I could give this thing about a 1, because the music is pretty repetitive and unmemorable, maybe up to a 2 because sometimes the vocals are funny.
But there is no reason for an alleged "black metal band" to not even have a proper guitarist. This isn't a circus show, and the genre isn't meant to be a dumping ground for your latest "experimental ambient" halfway aborted projects. Oath Bound is completely forgettable and is mostly already forgotten video game music of the worst kind.
It's like someone paused a Castlevania IV for Super NES and started screaming shit over it in the worst possible imitation of black metal. And normally I can tune out vocals, but this cannot be done here as the rest of the "music" is even worse.
Oath Bound deserves to be flushed down the toilet.
Any profits they made/make from this catastrophe must be awarded as retributory damages to John Tolkien's family.
Oath Bound score: 0/100.
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