A True Shitstain Album - "Attera Totus Sanctus" Review (0%)
There's a lot of bland, uninteresting black metal in the world, and Dark Funeral are proudly carrying the torch of such music into the new millennium with 'Attera Totus Sanctus', an album whose worthlessness is outclassed only by its adherence to superficial genre aesthetics and conventions. I can think of not a single note on this CD which even remotely stands out to me, and the only surprise found anywhere on this album is that it has somehow managed to give Swedish black metal an even WORSE name than even Reinkaos. It doesn't simply run the mill, the friction that Dark Funeral is able to produce while running it has actually set the mill on fire, making fellow countrymen Marduk look like freewheeling visionaries by comparison. 'Attera Totus Sanctus' is the figurative 'ugly girl' who's only kept around the group to make all other members feel better by way of comparison. In short, it aspires to nothing, does nothing, and doesn't even manage to leave a shitstain on the porch when it's gone (it's a known fact that Dark Funeral frontman, 'Lord' Ahriman Svanberg, works as a male escort in the predominantly gay neighborhoods of Stockholm).
Dark Funeral plays a painfully generic breed of modern 'black' 'metal' that moves at a plodding mid to vaguely quick pace, occasionally attempting to construct a breakdown out of the scraps that other, better deathcore artists wisely threw away during the writing process. Some mild 'old school' black metal influence seems to be present, but this is probably just a result of confusing the myriad of droning chug riffs with something approximating Darkthrone or Bathory worship. I'm having trouble describing Dark Funeral's music properly because every time I try to I just end up with a Wikipedia-style description of MTV metalcore as a genre.
There are screams, near constant blast beats and triggered double bass, generic black-metal-for-dummies tremolo riffs and quickly-moving chord structure chug riffs, reminiscent of the very worst of Korn and Watain, and it manages to do absolutely nothing with any of those elements except waffle and shit itself like an incontinent Jon Nödtveidt. Basically, Mikael 'Ahriman' Svanberg.
Yes, 'Attera Totus Sanctus' is that bad. It's everything wrong with modern 'black' 'metal' turned into a single, omnipotent shit package.
A True Shitstain Album
Being greeted by 'edgy' song titles like 'King Antekhrist', 'Godhate 1488' and '666 Cocks Inside Me' would lead one to believe that 'Attera Totus Sanctus' is at least entry-level, basic bitch Satanic Warmaster worship... but no, Dark Funeral fails even at that! The result is an album so bland, so vapid and so tasteless that it makes even Watain's toothless sub-70 IQ 'blackened' deathcore seem genuinely transgressive by comparison.
I cannot possibly comprehend someone fully enjoying this album unless they have the lowest of black metal standards or feel that metal as a whole needs to be 'taken down a notch' and resemble late Roadrunner legends Slipknot a bit more. The band plays everything totally mechanically and without even a hint of spirit, like a death row inmate on suicide watch mechanically tucking in his last KFC Famous Bowl while his mind wanders elsewhere.
In a way, I have to give Dark Funeral some applause for this album, because it's shit releases like 'Attera Totus Sanctus', and let's not forget the following turd 'Where Shadows Forever Reign', which really make you appreciate the good things in life. When I finish listening to this album, the grass feels softer, the sun feels warmer, and all women appear more beautiful. I almost think that this band might be a musical metaphor for a futuristic Orwellian dystopia where black metal must have all emotion, intensity and musical talent extirpated under penalty of brutal rape followed by execution, but perhaps I'm being too charitable with the homo escort 'Lord' Ahriman and his turdfest 'Attera Totus Sanctus'.
Thank you, Dark Funeral, for giving me comfort in my darkest hours, knowing that no matter how terrible, painful, and traumatizing life may become, it will always, always be more interesting than listening to you.
Attera Totus Sanctus score: 0/100.
Support the Underground
