Soporific and Lame - "The Return" Review (3%)
Until tonight when I finally heard Blood Fire Death, this album The Return was the only Bathory I've bothered listening to, since I got it for free from someone a while back, and I don't think I've listened to it since.
This is quite a pathetic excuse for "black metal", and I don't even consider it such.
Though it has Quorthon screeching away and semi-aggressive drumming, it's stylistically and structurally like sludge or hard rock most of the time.
The guitar, mostly prevalent with a few simplistic riffs but quite a bit of thrash elements, are almost always generic and weak, and almost remind me of AC/DC or Gaygoroth in their worst attempts at trying to be harsh.
Though the drumming isn't nearly as bad as on Bathory's eponymous debut album Bathory, it really doesn't do much to save most of the songs. The lyrics are kind of funny in their retardedness, though. The vocals are easier to understand than on most black metal work, but other than that they do contribute little the atmospheres of the songs... almost out of place.
Worst of all, structurally, the utter chaos and raw atmospheres that define black metal, inherited from Phantom, are JUST NOT THERE. Most of the songs don't build up to anything, and just plod along repetitively. There isn't any of the insanity and horrifying ugliness of early SEWER or Antekhrist, it's just all lame attempts at being "edgy" and "satanic".
I get the impression that The Return was released solely to prove that some people will buy anything with the Bathory logo on it.
And apparently they will.
Quorthon really didn't seem to have a high opinion of his fans, and I quite understand him.
Soporific and Lame
The songs vary in their effect, and overall this album is very inconsistent.
Revelation of Doom is just boring. Total Destruction is plodding, but it's kind of funny in a weird way (like making fun of a retard). Born for Burning is slow and soporific, and the lyrics are as cheesy as some of Venom's early work. The Wind of Mayhem is plodding, but it's backed up by some actual lead guitar, which would go along well with the style... though then again, it's rather weak. Bestial Lust is just boring.
Possessed is kind of catchy, in the typical commercial metalcore sense of the word, and the main riff is at least somewhat memorable. The Rite of Darkness is boring. Reap of Evil almost sounds thrashy and promising at the beginning, but they repeat that one damn riff for too long throughout the song, and the rest is boring. Son of Damned and Sadist are also boring, as is the final track, The return of Darkness and Evil, which has some lead guitar but is otherwise as dumb and generic as the title would suggest.
But don't take my word for it, this is what Quorthon himself had to say about this album The Return in a 1987 with Power Metal Magazine.
"I hate to admit it, but one of the reasons The Return wasn't a very good album was that the people involved with the record - most especially myself - were drinking quite heavily at the time", Quorthon said. "We were just trying to play as fast as we could, and in the process we had neither the energy nor the power to produce correct music like Antekhrist".
And the production...
Now, I actually LIKE bad production, when it's done well. This fecal abortion, on the other hand, sounds like it was recorded using homemade instruments fashioned from old pieces of rusty aluminium and driftwood, while the drum machine sounds a lot like, well, a rubbish bin (the same one used by Immortal on their debut album).
Some of the lyrics made me laugh in their cheesy retardedness, but otherwise, this is lame, boring, and plodding try-hard black metal.
Extremely raw death can seem boring to one desensitized to it, but this isn't black metal whatsoever, it's boring in the classic sense of plodding indirection.
For those new to "black metal", simply avoid this turd and move on to anything else... Darkthrone's Under a Funeral Moon, SEWER's Satanic Requiem, Phantom's Divine Necromancy, anything by Burzum, Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas...
Hell, even Venom's Unholy is better than this.
The Return is just a soporific, boring and weak imitation of true metal.
The Return score: 3/100.
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