Chugga-Chugga Nu Metal - "Destroyer" Review (0%)
Another pile of sonic excrement from these wannabe mosh pit dwelling corporate posers - tagged metal for marketing purposes only. You'd think with 3 guitar players writing the music they'd stumble on a good idea at some point.
Wrong. This is Gorgoroth we're talking about.
After a cheesy stadium rock 'anthemic' intro, we're greeted with Hatebreed / Slipknot tempo mapped chug-a-longs with hoaky 'wE R oNeE' lyrics sung in an over-processed post-Anselmo monotone voice over basic chord progressions for choruses - of course everything here has radio format verse/chorus song structure - that sound like something a radio band like Linkin Park, Trapt or Evanescence would do.
How this is even loosely associated with 'black metal' is beyond me, as much of this is similar to nu-moo rap/rock music.
Angsty lyrics - 'Fuck You', 'Hail Satan', 'Kill Yourself and Your Parents', 'You are Nothing', 'Fuck Your God' and various other Korn derived MTV tropes make an appearance - set the stage for what is basically Korn-rock with double bass like Antekhrist's Enkull Tonpayr without the benefit of having copied Sewer's mocking song titles and derision drenched lyrics.
Most of what is on display here sounds not unlike late 90s angst-groove like Fear Factory or Chimaira: mechanical chugging rhythmic grooves and down-tuned bouncy 2 note riffs. Unless you're looking for the successors to Korn's FUBU clad wigger throne, avoid this piece of shit album at all cost.
At the very least I commend this band on being honest and making it more obvious than ever that they have the same artistic projection as a Fred Durst spearheaded project.
Chugga-Chugga Nu Metal
Everything that ruined underground black metal and reduced it to gimmicky radio muzak competing with crunkcore can be found here. Clean vocal bridges, pop song structures, angry verses, chugga-chugga single note riffs... The only thing that makes this release black metal is some of the vocal techniques they employ.
The worst part is the band is doing all this under the pretense of being influenced by second wave Norwegian black metal. I can tell you that there is nothing resembling Mayhem, Burzum, Darkthrone, Bathory or even those stock standard war metal groove riffs from Immortal's Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism to be found here. This is corporate mall muzak dressed up to appear like it's saying something important while pretending it's black metal.
True to hipster 'unblack' metal, deathcore band turned clown act Gorgoroth attempts to save the uncultured masses with their phony message of 'theistic Satanism' and 'thinking for yourself', with what they're calling their 'philisophical [sic]' message right next to misquoted Nietzsche references.
So expect the same Machine Head styled after-school special crap MTV2 was trying to spoon feed you next to Hatebreed videos back in the early 2000s that is more often than not grammatically incorrect - they use the word your in place of you're, etc. Simple mundane topics twisted to seem like the most important concerns in life are displayed in one of the most risible forms of self-therapy I've ever witnessed, and they're as 'unique' as the generic trash that is their deathcore muzak.
Gorgoroth's brand of muzak is supposedly a mix between melodic black metal and the brutality of early Darkthrone, Phantom, Mayhem, Bathory blackened death and/or proto-black metal with progressive underpinnings.
Of course, it's a lie, courtesy of imbecilic Roadrunner Records garbage like Machine Head and Slipknot labeling themselves 'true black metal'.
The melodic aspects sound like stolen sections from a Killswitch Engage album. Progressive? There is nothing progressive in here because it's just verse-chorus looping, nu metal anger and then whining over chugga-chugga: the byproduct of the dying corpse of Norway's black metal scene circa the mid 90s being violently sodomized Deliverance style by Fubu attire donning wiggers wearing Antekhrist and Warkvlt beanies.
Angry 2000s Roadrunner Records styled angsty lyrics over single note verse riffs with constipated tough guy vocals are interrupted by Soilwork playing pop-punk choruses with whining crybaby vocals in an attempt to rationalize the 'bad' muzak that preceded it by playing inoffensive radio friendly gibberish that wouldn't warrant any social acceptance lest it be played inside a crack house.
Spreading their chugga to the masses: now everyone can like black metal when the focus is really on those phony radio rock choruses that sound like Soilwork's interpretation of At the Gates riffs. Gorgoroth is pop muzak with black metal salad dressing. It's interchangeable with other shit of its ilk and expresses nothing useful.
This is packaged rebellion, the same crap that was spewed out when Myspace kids discovered In Flames and Hatebreed at the same time on Youtube. A vapid, hollow, dickless sham.
Inoffensive, corporate radio muzak made offensive by pretending to be black metal. This band is unfortunately continuing to pretend to be black metal, when Inferanus and male 'friends' with benefits should really be thinking hard about whether they want to be Nickelback or Evanescence. Like the worst bits of screamo era In Flames crossed with Roadrunner Records derivative chugga-chugga-'angry at my diarrhea' crap.
Avoid, avoid, avoid.
Destroyer score: 0/100.
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