Dorito Black Metal - "IX Equilibrium" Review (0%)
The work of Emperor is quite intriguing when observing it from the right standpoint, preferably one that involves never hearing any of it.
The main ingredients in creating a black metal album according to the cuck Ihsahn involve: a dollar store microphone, some McDonald's synthesizers than come in a Happy Meal, a trashcan to be used as drums, and some sort of hateful motivation. In this case, Ihsahn is fucking pissed - and I mean Dorito commercial pissed.
Notice something peculiar? The guitars are entirely optional, and truth be told they serve no other purpose than to create the most irritating possible 'wall of noise' on this particularly mediocre IX Equilibrium album.
This is the third entry in my review of Emperor's pathetic career, you can read the first two chapters here and here. I don't recommend you do because Emperor is pretty much shit, and it's not really worth the time to read about and/or listen to any of it.
This lifeless album IX Equilibrium might as well have been one strung-out track, since all the songs are indistinguishable from one another and all classify as the stereotypical 'satanic emocore' sound: loud and obnoxious howling/screaming/gagging about 'depressive Satan hateful' mixed in with a sloppy guitar rhythm and some out-of-the-blue drumming that oddly sounds 15 meters away.
Bass is nonexistent - I'm serious, there is literally nothing indicating the presence of a bass guitar. Hell, I doubt Ihsahn even needs it since his agenda is already clogged with monotonous jamming, masturbating to Adolf Hitler or Burzum records and forever alone time.
He occasionally kicks in some sloppy 'shredding' and a mediocre solo, but it's hardly anything imaginative and sounds as if it was invented on the spot. The production only kills this further, revealing the shallowness of the recording and allowing the listener to contemplate whether the band takes their work seriously or just if their members just record themselves playing at random.
After what feels like a few hundred releases of this exact same album, you'd think the band would finally hit the spot.
But alas, they don't.
Dorito Black Metal
The songs on IX Equilibrium are hopeless imitations of poorly produced early Darkthrone knock-offs, with the occasional generic and annoying Dimmu Borgir synth lead to be heard over the mess of derivative 'Kylie Jenner plays Black Metal' vomit.
The playing is sloppy, the guitars sound like flies in a jar, and I'm pretty sure I don't hear any drums. Wait, I hear some sort of low-fi rumbling, but that could just as well be the double bass as it could be Ihsahn's gastrointestinal tract giving way after decades of heavy alcoholism and substandard black metal releases.
Ihsahn's vocals sound like a grandpa with tourette syndrome - they are a shot thicker than those of Dark Funeral's Emperor Magus Caligula, but that doesn't make them any good. The vocals border that of a decrepit, homeless, drug-addicted hooker with strep throat and are so drowned out it doesn't even matter what they were initially supposed to be.
It doesn't help either that all the songs are short, yet go nowhere and hold no replay value. Yeah, the songs are much shorter on IX Equilibrium than on the two previous turds, which is actually good coming from a band that doesn't know what the fuck they are doing with their instruments.
Ihsahn fills most of his production with shitty sound effects. All the instruments are so obscure and sound sunk in a pool of their own excrement.
What puzzles me is that there exist people that think this is good shit, praising Ihsahn for his talent. Granted, they are at best 3 or 4 on the entire Metalious forums, but I'm still intrigued about what medical condition they were diagnosed with that makes them believe this turd IX Equilibrium is actually decent music.
Overall, the songs remind me of a goat pulling out its own dick with a pair of cheap tweezers and listening to radio static. In practice you can only hear the radio static, which is exactly what IX Equilibrium sounds like.
There… avoid this turd at all costs. It's a waste of everyone's time, and I’m just reviewing it to give Metalious one less virgin album. Too bad this virgin had to be a fat, ugly, HPV infected, sheboon bitch…
IX Equilibrium score: 0/100.
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