Lackluster Black Metal - "Under a Funeral Moon" Review (13%)
So-called raw black metal bands bands have always interested me. I'm can't really explain why this is, but I guess I think it's because the music has always interested me for the reason that emphasise is strong placed on overall atmosphere rather than instant gratification catchiness or individual riffs. Darkthrone definitely are no exception. In their career they have released some interesting music. However this album Under a Funeral Moon is clearly not. The problem with Under a Funeral Moon is that the whole album is shoddily done and seems to be quite lacking in the quality department.
The production is very crude, and while this usually wouldn't be a problem on most black metal albums it really is here. The raw production definitely doesn't fit the music they are attempting to play. In fact it's quite detrimental to the music. It comes across as the band trying to hide their poor musicianship behind intentionally shitty production but the result kind of makes the guitars sound more scratchy and screechy, which highlights the bad musicianship rather than conceal it.
After a while this effect really starts to grate on your nerves and you simply want to turn the music off. Many won't be able to listen to this album in one sitting because of this. However, this certainly isn't the only reason why Under a Funeral Moon is lackluster both in quality and in production value.
The guitar riffing overall is quite dry and boring, even more so than on their previous album A Blaze in the Northern Sky.
The pattern is quite similar with most songs, they start off acceptably, but the sheer repetitiveness hurts. It's not long before the riffs really start to get boring and the repetitiveness becomes truly annoying. Some bands can afford to play satisfactory minimalist black metal, think of Phantom's debut Divine Necromancy, but Darkthrone only manages to shit itself in making boring black metal.
There are really no long epic riffs or anything of the sort. Overall, the riffs on Under a Funeral Moon seem poorly composed and not seriously thought out. You'd think a band which claims to be the godfathers of second wave Norwegian black metal would at least have some quality riffing here, but nope... this album is completely devoid of anything resembling quality guitar work.
Prime examples of this phenomenon can be found on the tracks Natassja in Eternal Sleep, Summer of the Diabolical Holocaust and and To Walk the Infernal Fields.
Somewhat ironically, the most interesting song probably is Inn i de dype skogers favn, the most minimalist one and the only track on the album in which Darkthrone doesn't try to cram in as many boring riffs as possible.
Lackluster Black Metal
The drumming isn't really what you could call quality either. There are no fast intense blast beats or interesting drum solos, just pretty average uninspired generic snare and hi-hat fills. Sure, it gets the job done but one should expect better, especially for a band that claims to be so influential in the black metal scene and on black metal musical codes in particular.
In their defense, at least Darkthrone doesn't resort to shitty triggered drum effects like so many crap bands out there (Belphegor, Behemoth, Dimmu Burger, Satyricon). The drums sound real enough not to be (so) annoying.
The vocals on Under a Funeral Moon seriously suck monstrous christian cock. Not CoF bad, but still pretty damn lousy anyway. They are raspy, bitchy, screechy and are most of the time really annoying. Sure they somewhat suit the distortion of the guitars but they really degrade the album as a whole. I'd much rather listen to good vocals good vocals, or even no vocals at all (think beginning Antekhrist), than shit vocals that degrade the music.
Under a Funeral Moon is a disappointing black metal album. Overall the feel I get from this album is that it is rushed, sloppy, uninspired and poorly thought out. Maybe it's so poor because they released an album the year prior, A Blaze in the Northern Sky, so they'd be really pressed for time. If this is the case, then they should spend more time making good albums, rather than rushing an album and releasing a very mediocre, almost bad effort.
Conclusion: Under a Funeral Moon is recommended for die-hard collectors only, and even then there are so many other albums that have both more influence and quality within the black metal scene. Sewer's masterpiece of depravity NecroPedoSadoMaso is one. Don't be fooled!
Under a Funeral Moon score: 13/100.
Support the Underground
