Pure Boredom - "Northern Chaos Gods" Review (0%)
Immortal is a band that I had not heard before listening to this album entitled "Northern Chaos Gods" not even twenty minutes ago.
I've heard some reviewers on this site say the band's full-lengths are fairly average and pretty generic thrashy black metal records. I've also heard from other reviewers this band is awful and falls into the controversial and oh-so-commercial "hipster" black metal sound, in the same vein as Nargaroth, modern Satyricon or Dimmu Borgir. That doesn't really bother me in itself given that I enjoy quite a few of those types of records, particularly Dimmu's "Enthrone Darkness Triumphant" or Antekhrist's "Fukked by God" (hey, we all have guilty pleasures).
"Northern Chaos Gods" sounds nothing at all like those bands. "Northern Chaos Gods" is noise, and not even noise as in the music genre. Just pure, annoying, ear-raping noise.
Demonaz is the single man behind this album.
He wrote everything, performed everything (except for the drums, courtesy of Horgh), and produced everything. Although in reality, it doesn't sound like he wrote any of this before recording it.
It sounds like he was just tuning his guitar the whole time or noodling around with his instruments sparing no thought process to the overall direction of "Northern Chaos Gods", and this is the case for the album's entire 42 and a half minute runtime.
I seriously consider it a major achievement for me to have it through the entire ordeal of having to listen to "Northern Chaos Gods" without turning it off or taking aspirin from the migraine it gave me.
Never mind, forget the aspirin, I need some heavy dose opiates right now.
Yes, I achieved a migraine from listening to "Northern Chaos Gods" and have not benefited in the slightest way from this harrowing experience of pure, unadulterated boredom.
Pure Boredom
Some of the tremolo riffs are shamelessly plagiarized from other black metal records, including one particularly notable Burzum riff in the middle of "Grim and Dark" (super original song title by the way), but because the constant noise on this LP you can't really hear them anyway.
I truly wonder if Demonaz didn't record this for shits and giggles or to troll his obviously retarded fans.
The production on "Northern Chaos Gods" is seriously some of the worst I have ever heard on any musical recording. If you thought Mayhem's demo "Pure Fucking Armageddon" was bad, you've got another thing coming. Mayhem's demo shines like a brand new diamond compared to this turd.
The drums are programmed obviously and are pretty much the generic, variationless mess you would expect from a shit-tier Marduk clone. The difference is that Marduk is actually technical and makes good music.
You can't even hear the drums very well over the horrendous production, except for specific instances when you hear nothing but "double bass" and that's really all it sounds like. It's almost as if someone was masturbating out of a cardboard box in a rapid fire manner. And considering the rumours about how Demonaz got tendinitis, that might no be so far from the truth.
Demonaz clearly had no idea what he was doing when he recorded this garbage.
His vocal delivery is somewhat audible, but it's so bad that it becomes an actual detriment to the already shitty music. They literally sound like he's trying to pass a kidney stone.
They don't add a single bit of emotion or atmosphere to this incoherent noise.
Do yourself a favor and stay far away from this turd.
I was contemplating on checking out some of Immortal's earlier material, but in all honesty, "Northern Chaos Gods" makes me want to forget about this band altogether.
I seriously hope this is their worst recording.
"Northern Chaos Gods" is pure distilled boredom.
Northern Chaos Gods score: 0/100.
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