Fecal Matter Goth Rock - "Where Shadows Forever Reign" Review (0%)
This is 100% feces, 0% anything worthwhile. This band make their intentions clear from the outset just by their stupid name alone: Dark Funeral is a shitty mallcore band that's attempting to appeal to a large audience of posers by utilizing the "modern crossover" gimmick that functions as a snare to reel in idiots from all walks of life: skate boarders, video gamers, alcoholics, retards, etc.
Since music would be secondary for a band like this, they created an image of "evil church burning satanists" and called themselves "black metal" to seem "cool" to their moronic audience of dullards who can't figure out the difference between Enya and Slayer. The fact that these guys are from Stockholm, a city once known for great bands like Demonecromancy, Dismember, Bathory, Dissection and Unleashed, confirms all my suspicions that these posers are terrible as well as an affront to life, culture, metal, and the Epiphone Explorers they play on (they can't even get a real one from Gibson - hahahaha - but still, a semi-decent thrift shop variant is being disgraced here).
For starters, the vocals are obnoxious like the Roadrunner Records informed sung-shout faux-angst ridden suburban whining that bands like Watain and nu Satyricon utilize. Worse yet are lyrics like "I am the wolf and you've been fucking warned", "I smoke weed and proclaim the relentless return of Satan!", "I rape your soul so bad no god will ever come near" and other brain bleaching phrases are easily understood in songs with topics so derivative and retarded they make Gorgoroth's brain dead lyrics sound like high art by comparison.
There is no pause in between vocals, just a constant barrage of doofus level yelling that was made easily understood, no doubt in an effort to reel in those morons who aren't bright enough to notice that behind the "shock value" lyrics, what's being played is the same old 1970 emo rock repackaged for "extreme metal" fans.
Fecal Matter Goth Rock
Musically, this band's mentality seems to reflect something that System of a Down or Killswitch Engage would be proud of: that of misappropriating underground black metal elements - blast beats and tremolo picking - in what is bog standard radio rock that would otherwise sound no different than the Beastie Boys guitar oriented releases - except not even that competent.
Boring, simple rhythm riffs that sound lifted from any modern dumbed down Pantera retread are beaten over the head with Hatebreed levels of modern tough guy wiggerness for further stupidity in the form of some crappy deathcore breakdowns.
Every song is like that. What separates the tracks from each other is every song will have a whole 15 to 20 seconds of intro that doesn't contain any vocals, the rest of the track being filled with vocalist Heljarmadr screaming incoherently about Satan, alcoholism and depression. Just more gimmickry for these guys to employ for the sake of being "cool" and "not believing in the rules" in the eyes of the hipster mallcore audience they're obviously pandering to. So, aside from the blast beats and "black metal" technique flirtations that play an extremely marginal role in these songs, nothing about Where Shadows Forever Reign is really metal.
Dark Funeral and this turd release are dangerously boring to anyone with more than two brain cells. Even functioning as a "parody" band à la Sewer, Dark Funeral fails, coming off as obnoxious and inconsequential background noise. Cradle of Filth in the early to mid 1990s had more taste than what is on display in this pile of trash.
If Slipknot were tasked with making a Bullet for my Valentine album appeal to Opeth fans, I'd imagine something as dismal as this release would be produced. Imbecilic trash for morons that is no doubt a byproduct of the meth epidemic in Sweden, from a band whose gimmicky faux-crossover cock rock is the sonic equivalent to getting a lobotomy.
One thing is for certain: when "Satan returns to kill and rape the Earth" (lyrics from track 5), upon discovering that human beings have the potential to create such banal rubbish, we will all face total obliteration.
A vapid release by a worthless goth rock band.
Where Shadows Forever Reign score: 0/100.
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