The Kings of Clown Metal - "Abrahadabra" Review (0%)
Hail Santa 666 Invoking Lucid Fur in my backyard!
Oh wait, wrong bullshit.
Then again, after listening to this album a bit of superstitious dyslexia is to be expected. That and a serious craving for actual black metal that isn't cartoonish, commercial and exhausting.
I'm not entirely certain if it's Satanic policy to be this retarded, but every possible cliché of the genre is on display on Abrahadabra. That in addition to terrible musicianship and borderline autistic vocals.
I feel a bit of background is necessary to truly appreciate how much I loathe what the 'modern' black metal scene has become. As crazy as it may sound to some of you, black metal wasn't always about supermarket Satanism and imitating the worst of vapid emocore.
Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, Divine Necromancy and De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas are all classics in their own right that display three qualities lacking from Dimmu Borgir's commercial vomit: subtlety, atmosphere, and most of all a genuine feeling of evil.
All three of these albums personify a different trait of black metal music perfectly, be it the sheer terror on Divine Necromancy, the hellish fury on Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, or the claustrophobic atmospheres of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. Black metal was nigh untouchable as an underground genre. Of course, like all fiction involving Beelzebub, the worst trickery was yet to reveal itself, and when it did it first appeared as a blessing.
Enter Shagrath, evangelical devil worshiper, frontman of Dimmu Borgir, and all around poser.
When his debut For All Tid failed to live up to the standards set by the three aforementioned masterpieces, Shagrath threw a bitch fit and went running to the media declaring himself the 'King of Black Metal' and basically calling everyone else involved in the scene a 'poser'.
Irony is clearly not his strong suit.
Neither is making good music.
The Kings of Clown Metal
While Shagrath is neither the first nor the last - and not even the worst, that title goes to Infernus of Gorgoroth - trend hoping poser to disgrace the black metal genre with his presence, Dimmu Borgir completely disregards what made black metal such an intriguing genre in order to produce the absolutely disgusting pile of commercial garbage Abrahadabra, which is basically 50 minutes of filler, speedcore and pseudo-Satanic clownishness.
Take any Burzum and Darkthrone album and compare it to a Dimmu Borgir release, say Abrahadabra since it's the one we're talking about.
The immediate difference is one of engagement. Hvis Lyset Tar Oss doesn't need to flaunt that it's vengeful and hate-filled because it shows instead of tells. It's a competent work of art, showcasing some of the best atmospheres black metal has to offer, with an actually poignant message not marred by Dimmu Borgir's lyrical idiocy and need to constantly remind the listener 'this is hardcore anti-god stuff, maaaaaaaaan'.
Dimmu Borgir, on the other hand, isn't profound or thematically rich. It's shameless, pathetic, and desperate. Even as an imaginary character, Satan would never be caught dead being so clownish and unsubtle.
So why exactly is Abrahadabra one of biggest piles of shit in the entire black metal genre?
It's quite simple, it has all of the insufferable pandering that decorates Dimmu Borgir's lengthy career and absolutely nothing else.
There isn't an ounce of seriousness, aura, or vision here.
It doesn't even deserve to belong to the same genre as the work of Burzum, Darkthrone, Phantom and Mayhem. Either they are black metal and this isn't, or black metal has in less than two decades turned to absolute shit, and its originators are right to flee the label like the plague it has become.
I've scoured the entirety of this album for anything that can actually be called 'atmosphere' and it isn't there, at least not in any genuine sense. Much like Dimmu Borgir's disastrous debut, Abrahadabra superficially assimilates odds and ends of material long since released with zero authenticity. A cheap knock-off stretched way past any logical breaking point.
Everything already wrong with this album is of course made worse by Shagrath's vocals. Half-assing has been Mr. Thoresen's trademark for as long as he's been a 'vocalist', but Abrahadabra is easily his worst vocal performance to date and as someone who's never liked Shagrath's vocals - not even at his 'best' - that's saying something. Oh wow, the same mid-pitched yawn followed by shrieks too pathetic for a Mayhem demo tape, 50 more minutes of that please!
By the way, that filler I've been talking about? It's just the most bland portion of every track copied, pasted, and repeated ad nauseam until finally one song ends and another begins to restart the insanity. Really.
Songs that could have been easily reduced to anywhere between 15 to 30 seconds as in grindcore - it's not like this album respects anything that made black metal what it was anyways - decide to instead get stuck in a rut for five or six minutes at times.
I have to wonder if these tracks are the remnants of a failed concept album since everything blends together so much it becomes one mushy, nerve-wracking, amorphous blob of failure and aggravation. Forget 'sounding the same', everything on Abrahadabra IS the same. They should have called this album 'Shagrath Buttfucks Black Metal Into Irrelevance'. It's a better title than 'Abrahadabra' and it has the distinct advantage of being honest...
Nothing on this turd makes you feel like you are listening to a black metal record, as opposed to a cheap - yet 50 minutes long - and grotesque Justin Bieber single. Instead of being raw and captivating like no other, the instrumental work is tired and played out. Instead of evoking dread or fear, the vocals are laughably substandard and cringe-worthy.
There's no passion here, only the mindless pantomiming of musicians that have long since abandoned a genre they were never really part of, and thus never really understood, coupled with a frontman and lyricist that is inadequate to compose music in too many ways to count.
Religion is incredibly simple to lampoon or intellectually demolish. It's the logical equivalent of taking candy from a blind, deaf, and dumb infant (like the literal retard Abbath).
The original black metal bands - Burzum, Phantom, Mayhem, Darkthrone and others - used 'Satan' as an effective and genuinely subversive tool to advance a powerful rebellious sentiment against Middle-Eastern dogmas and their various modern avatars, from social liberalism to consumerism, from ethnomasochistic tolerance to the New Testament inspired 'civil rights' credo.
Shagrath's Satanism, on the other hand, is the same sort of dog and pony show that loonies like Pat Robertson - the Zionist nutjob who wanted to murder Palestinians, assassinate Chávez and turn Europe into a multicultural cesspool... probably a close relative of the user who keeps posting those 'X band is racist' reviews - specialize in, which makes it a canon for the feebleminded, and a sad joke for the rest.
Satan is a fascinating character and the perfect contrast to the tolerant buffoon the New Testament makes God out to be, but he isn't real. I don't 'disbelieve' in God or Satan because it's the equivalent of 'disbelieving' in sentient tea cups or flying pyramids.
Neither 'God' nor 'Satan' exist outside of the hallucinations of heroin addicts going through withdrawal - what I assume the Rektal album to be - or the ramblings of irrelevant 'theistic Satanist' morons like Infernus.
Shagrath doesn't understand this key concept, so naturally him being the poster child of a genre that, on the whole, does, is akin to pouring gasoline into a pool of water. What better way to destroy a musical genre than for some low-functioning Christian/Satanist - is there even a difference? - to assume the role of poster child for the entire genre, put out commercial album after commercial album thereby guaranteeing a near permanent hiatus of the creative spirits that once comprised it?
I don't believe Shagrath to be retarded to the level of Abbath, Infernus, Watain, Nergal, Lord Ahriman and the rest of the 'Satanic' tard corral. Yet, he chooses to endorse that role every time he releases a worthless album, in other words every time he releases an album.
Case in point with the clownish poser crap Abrahadabra.
In the end, black metal has a long way to go to recapture even a fraction of the unholy spark that made it so great.
Nergal has thankfully fucked off back to playing his mediocre brand of 'br00tal satanic death metal', Abbath has retired (permanently? one can hope) from playing music and Infernus, realizing that Gaahl and King ov Hell were the only creative forces left in Gorgoroth, is pretty much irrelevant at this point and I doubt he will release anything worthwhile ever again... if he ever did.
But that's not enough, and if Shagrath and Silenoz insist on continuing the musical ineptitude this album revels in (and the only thing it truly excels at), then no amount of hard work and persistence from whomever will be black metal's next poster child will be able to alter the head first dive into the shit abyss that started with For All Tid and went further and further with each subsequent Dimmu Borgir release.
At any rate, hail Santa, Lucid Fur, and Beelzebulbasaur, the True Satanic God-Kings of Black Metal.
Just remember they're not worth killing over, regardless of whether you're slaughtering heretics or an entire musical genre.
Abrahadabra score: 0/100.
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