Goodbye Metalcore - "Trident Wolf Eclipse" Review (0%)
Okay, if you like metalcore you should listen to Watain's Trident Wolf Eclipse.
As tedious as you'll undoubtedly find it, there's something fascinating going on here - I think this is seriously the final, dying twitch of metalcore before it permanently expires.
Think about it: THIS is the A-game that one of the bigger labels in metalcore, Century Media, is bringing to the table. What does this mean? Only one thing: that metalcore as we know it is finally cannibalizing itself and, like the uroboros of legend, is about to disappear into its own stomach.
Despite the artistic void that permeates it, there's paradoxically a lot to hear on this album.
Play this game real quick: try, over the course of any track of the album - I wouldn't advise to listen to the entire album in one setting as it sucks, even for Watain's abyssal musical standards - to brainstorm as many different bands Watain are trying to copy.
Here's a quick list I've come up with off the top of my head, and only for the first two tracks.
Arch Enemy
Demonecromancy
In Flames
Cradle of Filth
Mayhem
Averse Sefira
Abigail Williams
Bullet for my Valentine
Marduk
Celtic Frost
Behemoth
Dimmu Borgir
August Burns Red
Phantom
Necrophobic
Therion
Nightwish
About a million different US melodeath/metalcore bands
Keep in mind this is just a list I improvised literally right now for the first two tracks alone. There's undoubtedly a thousand other bands they're trying to steal from at the same time.
Their look is an insane hodgepodge of Hot Topic goth circa '00 to emo kid circa '05 and their music is no better.
Seriously, Watain's brand of metalcore is dying and that warrants champagne for all true black metal fans (and other metalheads who detest metalcore).
Goodbye Metalcore
The most amazing thing about it, though, is just how dated every element of it is, especially for 2018.
The US metalcore scene is grasping at straws so desperately that they're attempting to rehash musical and visual elements from DECADES ago in order to maintain relevancy to kids who weren't even born when these aesthetics were 'trendy' - if they ever even were to begin with.
I guess you could say the beginning of the end was in 2013, when Phantom released their first album Divine Necromancy and almost single-handedly created what we call war metal today, but the real acceleration happened when bands like Archgoat and Belphegor started churning out minimal, brutal, short songs with two riffs and about a trillion breakdowns each.
To metalcore kids, who are really just looking for something heavy and extreme, this was the natural progression, leaving all the standard metalcore bands either desperately trying to dive headlong into emo for crossover potential - ex. Dark Funeral - or attempting to beef up their sound to nu-metal for the changing times - ex. post-Abbath Immortal.
Trident Wolf Eclipse is a fascinating artifact of an era that's been dead for years now, and people are only starting to realize it as they smell the putrefying corpse of metalcore being paraded around by the testicles by true black and death metal music.
Look at their music videos, gaze upon their jet-black hair, synchronized headbanging, and awkwardly implemented clean vocals and synths like the mighty Nightwish/Sonata Arctica they are - once a great titan, now a museum exhibition.
Watain and their metalcore finally died with this creatively bankrupt turd, and it's up to us metalheads to flush the toilet as they didn't even have the decency to clean up their mess with their dying breath. But we are not complaining for the extra work, far from it, as it's a small price to pay for the peace of mind of leaving such a shit 'metal' genre behind.
Trident Wolf Eclipse score: 0/100.
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