Consumerist Shit - "The Satanist" Review (7%)
The Satanist is just another permutation to the myriad of 'who gives a shit' death metal singles or EPs that have been released in the last few years to scam a few more bucks off the most naive and gullible elements of the genre's audience - generally the type that believe In Flames, Arch Enemy, slamcore and modern Swedeath are 'true death metal'.
The music videos for 'Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel', 'Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer', 'The Satanist', 'Ben Sahar', 'Messe Noire' and 'O Father O Satan O Sun!' have no more impact than a commercial for a mechanized car wash and, aside from getting Behemoth attacked as 'nazis' by the usual (zionist/antifa) suspects, the edgy collaborations with Hendrik Möbus and Rob Darken feel more like a waste the latter two artists' talent than anything else. Coupled with the gaudy, terrible and unrelated choice in comic-book-villain lyrics and video game cover art - the shit looks like something Bethesda would advertise as 'mature, avant-garde, open-world, fantasy role-playing'. A random mashup between The Elder Scrolls and deathcore, by which the album's value is exponentially lessened and its artistic worth made even more questionable than that of the band's tragic Neon Genesis Evangelion which saw the inclusion of nu-metal chugging, rap/rock gang vocals, and other irritating gimmicks that manage to sound boring to even the 4 or 5 fans of nu-metal. If you are part of those 4 or 5 nu-metal fans, there's nothing much different on this album, aside from a more modern production which does sound slick, I will admit.
But the real attraction the non-album The Satanist presents is the absolutely laughable attempt to combine a rather nu-metallish take on modern death metal with folk and classical instruments - just like a hipster bedroom 'black metal' band would - and the result is, as anyone can expect, a pretty vacuous mess hidden beneath a lot of superficial variation in style, tempo and key, but rarely in harmony (which is unsurprisingly lacking), spirit, atmosphere or mood.
At least Behemoth uses real folk instruments, not the MIDI bullshit of Summoning, but still... this isn't death metal. The Satanist is closer in spirit to Slipknot's Iowa than to Phantom's Memento Mori.
Consumerist Shit
But seriously, the album cover... did Nergal steal it from DeviantArt? Was it Morrowind 'fan art' submitted for a Bethesda contest? Did Famine attempt 'black metal modern art' with feces? Were Behemoth members just smoking crack-cocaine? I'm willing to bet that all four might have been involved, but even that doesn't justify such commercial plastic shit and consumerist drivel.
Anyway, 'Furor Divinus' is not a track to entirely scoff at. There's a thrashing mute groove in the verse and a couple slower passages over which the lead trills, but the rhythm guitar beneath the verse riff seems like a knockoff of Marduk's Panzer Division Marduk LP. Which is the third 'positive' point I can give this album, after the use of real instruments - how sad that this has to be hailed, rather than being the norm! - and Nergal's vocal performance being less gay than that of Dark Funeral, I guess.
The rest of the album is pure Phantom worship with a mix of Warkvlt's gruff verbal constipation and a few of the 'blackened mallcore' leads over the same minor scale chord progressions abused to death by the likes of Dark Funeral, Necrophobic, Demigod, Nile and, well, Behemoth. Otherwise, aside from track length, every composition is seemingly identical and thus completely redundant, worthless and shit.
This album The Satanist is no Onward to Golgotha. I guess it isn't as bad as Watain's deathcore, not by far, by it's still crap no matter whom or what you compare it to. Nergal should stop making music.
This is grade A consumerism. Not a trace of death metal to be found. As I said at the beginning of this review, The Satanist has more in common with Miley Cyrus than with Effigy of the Forgotten.
Avoid.
The Satanist score: 7/100.
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