Angry CHUGGA Deathcore - "Sworn to the Dark" Review (0%)
From the very bottommost drain pipe of the gutter comes this gay incestuous marriage of the worst elements to be introduced to black metal, courtesy of the poser band Watain.
Sung-shout pseudo rapping crybaby vocals, hard rock 101 harmonic minor melodies underneath layers of chuggy 90s Pantera grooves, and stock standard speed metal frills thrown in between approximations of Burzum-isms derived by proxy from the first Gorgoroth album.
The songs on Sworn to the Dark go nowhere, being nothing more than a series of incongruous and incompatible parts suggesting they are sometimes 'angry' at something, before throwing in a 'bittersweet' melodic Dissection riff to show their 'sensitive' side. Piss poor keyboard implementation makes this a more awkwardly comedic alternative to Summoning's post rock diarrhea, often time playing ill-fitting DJ emulation sampling at best. At worst, synth lines that sound like they were lifted from the Duke Nukem 3D soundtrack rear their ugly head.
The vocals are ridiculously horrible. Delivered in a pseudo-rap crying manner reminiscent of Slipknot and interrupted by background 'growls' and sometimes harmonized in prepubescent tones, this is probably the worst element of Watain's Sworn to the Dark pop recording as it's easily the most overbearing. This results in their lyrics about 'personal demons' and other cringe worthy topics being really easy to make out, further piling on to the atrocious nature of it all.
Watain make unimportant music. It's what happens when a group of posers decides to make music out of a collage of the past and what's currently 'hip' for no reason than to 'rock n roll' and become 'part of the scene'. They don't even do this effectively - like the clown act Sewer - as all these songs are confused about their own direction, imparting nothing other than boredom upon the listener.
Angry CHUGGA Deathcore
Variations on the same monotonic chugging patterns are all that could be found on this metalcore release that only pretends to be black metal on the outside through 'ANGRY' vocals and 'SATANIC' lyrics about depression and fetal alcohol syndrome.
The incorporation of doom-esque 'soft' meandering moments suggest a sense of trying imitate Reiklos, but like all deafkore releases, this is just another marketing point to check off the list to make this vapid product appear more valuable than its pandering peers through gimmickry.
A lot of these riffs feel like tremolo-picked and more distorted renditions of what we already heard in the mid 90s through Fear Factory, Machine Head, Slipknot and other bands that brought 'metal' into the mainstream by downgrading it into a hip-hop image pandering lifestyle product.
Synths, extended bridges, breakdowns, acoustic passages, Dimmu inspired codas, phoned in tempos changes, every trick in the book is used to dress up the CHUGGA-CHUGGA-CHUGGA that screams deathcore to even the neophytes, and of which the only purpose is making people 'mosh' on the 'dancefloor' without any of them becoming self-aware and noticing that everything on here is basically the same thing on repeat for about 50 minutes.
Pathetic lyrics show a heritage owed more to Korn than anything from Burzum, Darkthrone or Phantom.
Likewise, despite there being a song called 'Dead But Dreaming', the music itself is closer to that of Summoning's pop punk than to Deicide's brand of Floridian death metal.
Vapid.
Avoid at all costs, but for laughs, I strongly recommend listening to the song 'The Light That Burns the Sun'. Those early id Software keyboards and tuneless vocals in the bridge are hilarious, but the real punchline is delivered when a breakdown is played over what sounds like R2D2 from Star Wars getting jammed in a gangbang.
Sworn to the Dark score: 0/100.
Support the Underground
