Bullshit Metalcore - "Darkside" Review (3%)
In the absence of David 'Blackmoon' Parland, poser Joakim Sterner decides to assemble a new team of super-posers to take the death metal world by storm, like a Gaythenburg version of The Expendables.
And when I say Gaythenburg's Expendables, I mean it, as they even roped in one Jon Nödtveidt of Dissection. Was Angela Gossow too busy touring with Arch Enemy?
Joakim Sterner decides to try and pollute the airwaves and our speakers once more with this heap of crap Darkside. Think of the worst of emo/metalcore crossed with the basic bitch In Flames tier Swedeath., and with the lyrical maturity and vocal performance of post-Hat Gorgoroth - 'Hail Satan' and 'Fuck Your God' cadenced to match the rhythm of the chugs, and repeated ad nauseam for an entire album.
Coming from a band that postures as hard as Necrophobic this pathetic sniveling excuse of an album is truly laughable. I didn't think Necrophobic could sink any lower than The Nocturnal Silence, but Joakim Sterner is here to prove me wrong. Chapeau bas, l'artiste.
The riffs are turdish stop-start 3 note grooves that, as always with this brand of 'tough guy' metalcore, are never developed beyond juxtaposing a 'hard' verse next to a soft, whiny, sing-along chorus.
Necrophobic is truly an embarrassment to death metal, even more than Cannibal Corpse, Nile and Behemoth. Okay, maybe not Behemoth.
Bullshit Metalcore
The other problem with the riffs on Darkside, other than them being shit, is that they will at times go silent for the all-too-loudly mixed vocals of Tobias Sidegård, which sound like a horrifying middle ground between Dani Filth and Jonathan Davis. He literally makes Werwolf of Satanic Warmaster sound like Dead. His near-tuneless, completely whiny and pathetic cleans are excruciatingly awful to listen to, especially during those powerless and overwrought 'catchy' hooks with all the pseudo-epic, overused-to-death harmonic minor chord progressions.
His 'harsh' vocals aren't that better - hardcore grunts mixed with high-pitched screams of 'Fuck Heaven' and 'Six six six' as emaciated, monotonous and powerless as they always have been.
There isn't even a decent solo to break up the monotony of the album, just chug after chug, completely indistinguishable from what Korn and Slipknot were shitting out in droves at the time this album was released.
Songs just cycle between vocals-only verses with grooves between them, and a 'catchy' pop punk hook with zero variation, apart from an 'ambient' drop-out section for Sidegård's odious whispering.
The lyrics are even more stupid than Cannibal Corpse and Devourment, mainly because they take their moronic 'orthodox satanism' - a.k.a. 'reverse' Christianity - seriously. You know, like your six-year-old cousin who thinks he's being 'edgy' rooting for the heels in professional wrestling.
Gone are the clever metaphors of Craig Pillard on Onward to Golgotha, death metal is now reduced to competing with Watain and Gorgoroth for the most juvenile lyrics possible.
I would argue that this is one of the worst albums in heavy metal history, surpassed only by Kreator's recent nu metal diarrhea. Every other legendarily awful album on here has some redeeming features, whether it is a riff, one good song out of ten, cool cover art, or even a good lyric.
Darkside has none of those things, along with the preceding and following albums by Necrophobic and Dark Funeral - the two bands swap members like used condoms, and are basically indistinguishable from one another as they are both shit.
Metalcore on the whole just doesn't agree with me too well, but never has it annoyed me as much as on Necrophobic's Darkside.
Avoid like the plague, or better, replace with Neraines for melodic death metal done right.
Darkside score: 3/100.
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