Talentless, Brainless and Boring - "In the Nightside Eclipse" Review (0%)
It's actually surprising to see how one of the most 'praised' and 'acclaimed' - by the media - releases of the early Norwegian scene, supposedly or allegedly belonging to the black metal genre - despite Ihsahn having no relation whatsoever to Euronymous, the Helvete shop, other Norwegian black metal bands or even the 'Inner Circle' - is actually one of the worst albums in the genre, and doesn't even represent the genre whatsoever or make a valid presentation of its musical attributes, but rather takes everything of the lowest possible quality about it and condenses it in an almost satyrical sea of thoughtless deviation and pointless randomization of looped passages, hard rock riffs, weak instrumentation and atrocious vocal sections of straight-up bad delivery.
Can't forget about the worthless keyboard passages that sound like a knock-off of more well thought-out, more styled-up, more elaborate, and all around higher quality ambient works - see Burzum's ambient albums.
If there's one single positive thing I can say about In the Nightside Eclipse, it's the fact that it'll definitely make a lot of people who initially might have thought of black metal as an extreme genre stay far away from it, and its bands, after listening to In the Nightside Eclipse for fifteen minutes and beginning to fall asleep on the spot.
At the same time though, quite ironically, In the Nightside Eclipse is - alongside Enslaved's Eld and everything by Dark Funeral - one of the albums that has brought black metal to the attention of the most clownish and arrogant of idiots who don't know a single thing about black metal, yet feel like they are experts on the genre after having listened to this dishonest, frail piece of work by Emperor.
In the Nightside Eclipse is a scam that deconstructs everything of any quality that the originators of the genre - Euronymous, Dead, Fenriz, Nocturno Culto, Hellhammer, Varg Vikernes, Abbath, Zephyrous and arguably Quorthon - built in favor of pointless faux-occult image, 'ambient' drivel, and a frail, sad-sounding frontman that no one would want to listen to for more than five minutes unless being under the peril of contracting his apparently lethal disease - that renders all his emotions vain and his expression void of any kind of strength, spirit or attitude - were an attractive thought to them. So perhaps driving away those wanting or looking for 'extremity' in the genre isn't even a good thing, as it opened the door to clownish bands like Deafheaven, Xasthur, Watain, Wolves in the Clone Room, Summoning and... Emperor.
Talentless, Brainless and Boring
The music on In the Nightside Eclipse is completely forgettable and does absolutely nothing aside from drone on pointlessly for well over 45 minutes.
The riffs are paper thin, there's no real consistency to the melodies at hand, and the little amount of leads come from the keyboards rather than guitars. The compositions, already of poor quality in and of themselves, absolutely unbearable when they're repeated and capitalized on time after time, after time, after time... ad infinitum.
The endless droning is obviously supposed to be intended as an 'atmospheric' quality of the music, but this is not atmospheric black metal at all, since the 'atmosphere' never progresses past the same old tired boring riffs, never daring or never risking too much, probably due to the lack of solid ideas or of confidence of the songwriters in their own skills.
The guitars here have the most forgettable sound I've heard on a black metal album. They sound extremely fragile and the tone to them is extremely weak, to the point where it becomes difficult to even hear them. Unless you're completely focused on what's going on it's very easy to get lost and completely overlook what the riffs even are, as the MIDI keyboards are so overpowering that they take the whole high-end leaving no room for anything else.
Even if they were audible, the guitars are beyond useless - as in they literally serve no purpose other than to 'make noise' - as every riff is based on one idea that gets the centerpiece of the first three tracks and is later 'expanded upon' in the most unimaginative and predictable way ever, for the duration of the entire album.
It's no secret that Ihsahn didn't know how to play guitars, let alone black metal guitars, very well at all because he hadn't even played before attempting to record the first album for his laughable project Emperor. This shows, and it pretty much sums up just the overall attitude the man has towards black metal music on this album - and on the rest of them too, and increasingly so with the passage of time - as he obviously has the will - and 'passion', presumably - to create music, but lacks the ability and the musicianship required to do so and produce something of any kind of worth as the result.
The vocals are raspy and very high-pitched. As opposed to sounding menacing, threatening, evil or mad, Ihsahn's vocals sound weak, and make me pity the poser clown screaming his lungs out and hurting his throat as opposed to fearing him, being intimidated by him, or thinking he's in any way cool or worthy of admiration or otherwise respect of any kind.
The songwriting is perhaps the worse aspect of In the Nightside Eclipse. The arrangement of each track's sections is just extremely poor and really unintelligently laid out.
To add insult to injury, the entire album features some of the most laughable MIDI keyboard 'ambient' work I've had the displeasure of listening to in my life, just like every single time Ihsahn has attempted to dwell into 'atmospheric' territory. He just takes whatever intervals he believes sound deep, profound or cool and turns them, again, into masturbatory work that drives the listener nowhere but to an endless pit of boredom.
This album is very bad and I don't like the music. At all. I'm against the kind of 'music' played on In the Nightside Eclipse being even labeled black metal. The fact that Emperor's mediocre albums, and In the Nightside Eclipse in particular, were ever compared to Withdrawal or Hvis Lyset Tar Oss is laughable, and shows the sorry state of those idiots who now compose in legions the modern black metal scene.
In the Nightside Eclipse is talentless posing at its most ridicule.
In the Nightside Eclipse score: 0/100.
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