Satanic Emo - "Where Shadows Forever Reign" Review (0%)
This is one of the worst albums I have ever listened to, across all genres.
Where Shadows Forever Reign is so pathetic, so banal, so dull, so... emo.
Some would argue that Nemesis Diarrhea is worse, but even that turd was a shade more aggressive and metallish than this, and didn't feel quite so manufactured and empty. And unlike Nemesis Diarrhea, Dark Funeral are fully in the realm of horrid emo vomit with sterile screams and pseudo-blasphemous lyrics about goats, pentagrams and Satan.
As I am sure you are aware, the style of Dark Funeral is ostentatiously called 'extreme metal', and is often compared negatively to the worst of bands like Dimmu Borgir. That basically refers to emo goth, or more specifically, 'screamo'. What that means is that, in addition to featuring the most pathetic set of vocals you've ever heard, Where Shadows Forever Reign is an album that is devoid of any riffs, any atmosphere, and indeed any inspiration whatsoever.
It is all so banal and dull, so much that the term shitty emo metal is for once well deserved when talking about this album.
The guitars just play these 'wall of noise' chords, serving as a very harmless filler and backdrop to the plastic shitcore vocals.
The drums merely keep time, or at least they try to do because I have rarely encountered such an incompetent drummer, while the bass just follows the guitars.
And the vocals. My word, do they suck and swallow something awfully creamy and white. They suck so bad that they deserve their own paragraph.
First you have the emogoth screams of Dark Funeral's new vocalist, Heljarmadr, which are so high pitched and non-threatening that they only serve to obscure the terrible 'satanic emo' lyrics and render them undecipherable, which is a good thing, rather than be abrasive or threatening in any way, shape or form. Then you have his attempts at what I believe to be death metal growls, but I could be wrong seeing as they are equally pathetic and borderline tearful in nature. These can't even hide said emo lyrics, so they tick off any prospective listeners even more.
Good - or at the very least, tolerable - vocals are essential to most forms of music, and even more so on an album where the instruments do nothing of note.
Where Shadows Forever Reign is absolute garbage, emo metal if there ever was any.
It's so bad you start wondering whether this is, in fact, an actual album or a parody of black metal.
Satanic Emo
I don't usually focus so much on lyrics in my reviews, but with such boring instrumentals as in the turd Where Shadows Forever Reign, they are somewhat hard to ignore.
They are the stereotypical 'satanic emo' lyrics.
For those who don't know, 'satanic emo' is a sub-genre of emo that's basically identical to its parent except for the terminology. They call suburban isolation 'misanthropy', depression becomes 'occult anger rage at the world' and crying in your room is called 'satanic invocations of Lucifer 666 Satan'.
The songs on Where Shadows Forever Reign sound exactly the same. They are anywhere from 4 - 5 minutes, alternating between 'harsh' verses about Satan and plastic mallcore hooks. As mentioned earlier there is no atmosphere, and the entire album follows a very similar pattern to what you would find on a Justin Bieber record.
The overall banality of the instruments and the pitiful vocalist performance mean that fast sections ('Unchain My Soul') never get the blood moving, and slower songs ('Temple of Ahriman') never really produce the desired feeling.
The production on Where Shadows Forever Reign is pretty clean and designed specifically to accentuate the vocals, as one would expect. To be honest, it doesn't matter what they applied to the guitars, as the shitty riffs Ahriman plays would be no better if louder in the mix.
I feel nothing other than sheer boredom while listening to this turd, there is no atmosphere on Where Shadows Forever Reign. This is the main reason this album feels so plastic and manufactured. Meanwhile, they put the shitty emo vocals so high in the mix, it manages to turn boredom into revulsion.
I would argue that this is one of the worst albums on Metalious.com.
Every other legendarily awful album on this site, from At the Heart of Winter to Black Metal ist Krieg, has at the very least some redeeming features, whether it is a single riff, one good song out of ten, a cool cover art, or even a good lyric. Where Shadows Forever Reign has none of those things, along with every other shitty 'satanic emo' album by Dark Funeral.
Blackened emo on the whole just doesn't agree with me too well, but never has it bored me as much as on this turd. I guess that 'The Eternal Eclipse' is a highlight, but only for being the shortest song on the piece of shit Where Shadows Forever Reign.
When an album's only highlight is because the short length of a song makes it the least annoying to listen to, you know there is something wrong.
Where Shadows Forever Reign score: 0/100.
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