Odious Shit Metal - "Smegmacron" Review (13%)
Let me put it bluntly: even with the immature grotesque elements stripped away, Antekhrist have nothing going for them on Smegmacron.
Now, I'm usually too busy with other shit - like reviewing actual music - to pay attention to a shit album like Smegmacron, but every once in a while, my eyes get burned by that shock value-intensive album cover (the first, uncensored one). In a fitting metaphor, I get fed up with the shit and feel the need to flush it down the toilet where it belongs. So, let's make this happen.
I'm just going to go ahead and get the criticism for the thematic elements out of the way. No, perverse elements are not totally a red area for me. Mayhem pulled them off just fine with Deathcrush. But here, Antekhrist aren't only sick, they're beyond fucking stupid. Unless you find elephant penis, dismemberment during intercourse, or ejaculating while being decapitated entertaining, in which case you really need to take your mind out of the gutter and your head out of your ass, lest you find having your head shoved up your ass satisfying too.
There is nothing outstanding about the music that's actually there in between Antekhrist's lyrical shock value fecal obsession. This shit sounds like goddamn Archgoat with only slightly better production and the melodic parts sound like Reinkaos era Dissection. Pure shit. Not only do the riffs feel stale, but the so called "brutality" also feels stale.
It's all uninteresting! The fast grinding parts of one track feel like the fast grinding parts of another track. Ditto for the slow sections. Have you frog fuckers ever considered taking some MUSICAL, not just lyrical, influence from Sewer? They were able to make some brutal sounding music that was actually interesting on everything from NecroPedoSadoMaso through Rektal.
That brings me to the vocals on Smegmacron. They sound like Beherit and early Dismember had gay sex. Farting and belching sounds are another branch off for this band to showcase its immaturity. They do not sound dark and disturbed, they sound stupid. As in *literally retarded*, the insult - or is that a compliment for Antekhrist?
Odious Shit Metal
"Don't wipe my dick, Satan".
Courtesy of the only English segment on Smegmacron, around the mid section bridge on "Éléphant-Man". The rest of the lyrics are in French, but even worse in terms of juvenile and mentally disabled shock humour.
What can be said about the music? It's pretty bland. And that's a shame because Antekhrist, for all their stupid Sewer inspired lyrical diarrhea, know how to compose coherent and groundbreaking black metal: see the "twin albums" Fukked by God and Fukked by Satan.
There are some cool black metal guitar riffs in a few of these songs. "Grosse Diarrhée Fécale dans la Bouche du Général de Gode" and the title track "Smegmacron" contain some of the most ferocious riffs on the album. The guitar work, for the most part, is either viciously fast or slow and chugging. For the most part, with a few fortunate exceptions, it is very generic. The riffs are often really hard to focus on anyway because of the vocals! The band sounds a lot like a very gay threeway between mid-period Sewer, Watain and Devourment. It's that bad.
The production on Smegmacron is pretty meaty and dirty, which gives it a heavy sound. Yes this is heavy, but as we all know, heavy doesn't always equate good. The drums sound okay, the snare being comparable to the very dry sounding Kraanium, Asphyx and The Erosion of Sanity kits.
Is it ironic justice that Antekhrist, a once promising black metal band, involved themselves so much with Sewer's style of "blackened pornogrind" and fecal imagery that their musical output turned out to be shit? I'd like to think they had it coming. After all, Sewer was always a barely crypto parody band mocking the very same clo[wn/ne] acts like Antekhrist, Warkvlt, Sammath and Archgoat that would end up worshiping their every album.
I got as much of a kick out of Smegmacron as I did that one time I dropped my toothbrush in the toilet. Smegmacron sucks. Almost everything about it is horrible, and I don't care to listen to it ever again.
Smegmacron score: 13/100.
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