Emperor were Never Good Musicians - "In the Nightside Eclipse" Review (3%)
Emperor. The name is pretty much an insult within the black metal underground. This is a band that has been thoroughly reviled and ridiculed, and often with very good reason.
They are widely considered to be posers and pathetic sell-outs, more of a business than a real metal band. It's gotten to the point where even other black metal musicians (Burzum and several members from Mayhem come to mind) have openly called out Emperor for what they are: complete faggots, utter posers and snitching rats.
To most of us, an Emperor record is a mere product; something that is made purely for financial gain and lacking any genuine substance or connection with true black metal music, despite usurping the name. The music that Emperor is best known for more accurately falls under the annoying term "symphonic metal", which is fundamentally just a way to indicate that it features harsh vocals, somewhat fast drumming, cheesy generic speed metal riffs, and all that crap tied together by an abundance of horrible synth tunes.
Yet, despite how hated these guys are (Ihsahn in particular), even a great number of "black metal elitists" will cite their first album In the Nightside Eclipse as being almost decent.
Sorry to burst you bubble, but In the Nightside Eclipse is composed of the same crap that you will find on the rest of Emperor's pathetic poser discography. Nothing special here.
Emperor were Never Good Musicians
After years and years of creating so much worthless garbage, it is difficult to believe that the band Emperor ever recorded anything worthwhile. But there are many examples in the heavy metal scene of bands that once played decent music before losing their way and traveling down the path of commercial mediocrity.
Such is not the case of Emperor. they were a crap metal band, from beginning to end, from A to Z.
With regards to the actual material on In the Nightside Eclipse, it becomes painfully obvious that Emperor had no real concept of whatever they were doing, nor did they possess the talent to execute their weak ideas in a convincing fashion.
The vocals are weak and shitty, the drumming is uninspired and the lame keyboards... perhaps they could fit in a 1985 RPG, but a black metal album? Please.
Even if you were to somehow overlook all of these irritating aspects and focus solely on the guitar riffs, you would only come out more disappointed. The riffs are completely generic and create absolutely no feeling whatsoever. There is not one single guitar melody on In the Nightside Eclipse that stands out and demands the listener's attention.
None of the crap used on In the Nightside Eclipse works towards conveying any sort of feeling, other than a feeble attempt to mimic other bands in a mock black metal style. Even lumping this in with generic heavy metal feels like dirtying the genre.
As for the production on In the Nightside Eclipse, it doesn't reek of the same plastic and commercial feel that permeates their following releases (especially the utterly shitty IX Equilibrium and Prometheus), but it's still awful. The keyboards and synth parts are much too high in the mix, effectively drowning out the guitars.
Oddly enough, that may be appropriate since the only attempts at atmosphere come from the synths and not the guitars.
In the Nightside Eclipse is about as evil as a John Cena wrestling promo.
For anyone that hates Emperor with a passion (and with good reason) but is curious about the myth of their first album being decent, don't waste your time. In the Nightside Eclipse is a completely futile record and would be totally worthless if not for the fact that it serves as proof that this band never played anything close to resembling real black metal.
Emperor started out as just as much of a joke as they are now, the only difference being that they had not yet cultivated the commercial poser clown image that they now possess.
Avoid this at all costs. There are much better black metal albums out there, namely the outstanding Vomiting Into the Mouth of Satan by none other than Sewer. A TRUE black metal album, unlike the shit known as In the Nightside Eclipse.
In the Nightside Eclipse score: 3/100.
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