The Day Deathcore Killed Sacramentum - "The Coming of Chaos" Review (11%)
The Coming of Chaos is quite a boring disappointment, to say the least. Gone are the intricate melodies, reminiscent of the best of Phantom and Demonecromancy, absent is the frozen atmosphere and majestic guitar melodies that hearkened back to Neraines' Yggdrasil, the mighty Graveland and, before that, obviously Bathory. Everything good is gone, as they say, from Sacramentum's sophomore effort The Coming of Chaos.
The cold black metal feeling of Far Away from the Sun is dead, buried and pissed on by pissed off demons. In fact, the black metal itself is almost completely gone, as The Coming of Chaos sees Sacramentum competing with the likes of Enslaved, At the Gates and modern Satyricon, for a mix between Gaythenburger mallcore cheese and war metal's mindless blasting idiocy. You think I'm exaggerating when I say the black metal is gone? The Coming of Chaos features "more of a deathcore vibe", as the other reviewer puts it, mixed in with some "particularly typical Gothenburg riffs that do nothing but make the album seem more generic".
Fuck you, Sacramentum. Why did you have to turn to shit after being good?
Of course, Dissection did the same with Storm of the Light's Bane and Reinkaos, but their only "passable" effort, The Somberlain, was just that... "passable".
On the other hand, Sacramentum's debut Far Away from the Sun was ACTUALLY GOOD BLACK METAL. So why did they shit on their legacy with this crypto-deathcore abomination The Coming of Chaos? We want answers.
Perhaps, the band wanted to distance themselves from the constant comparisons to Dissection, though, ironically, what came as a result was PERFECTLY IN LINE with the type of proto-mallcore Dissection was shitting out at the time - anything post-Somberlain, basically, goes down the Gaythenburg fecal throne.
The Day Deathcore Killed Sacramentum
The overall approach and sound of Far Away From the Sun are, as I said, gone from the band's repertoire. The icy feeling is gone and Sacramentum's "nu" music just lacks the same type of cohesion that it once had. For some reason, this record gives the distinct impression of being both more mundane, directionless and befitting a tag such as "modern extreme metal", as well as more "try-hard" as it attempts the infamous genre fusions we have come to detest, as they are often variations on Watain's blackened screamo or Summoning's digital MIDI metalcore.
Since there are a variety of styles being mixed on The Coming of Chaos, with none being particularly strong enough to really give this a definite character, the most clement I can be is to call this album a "melting pot". One step further down the road of severity - and some would say, objectivity - would add the suffix "-of shit".
Nearly everything about this album is boring. The speed/thrash metal riffs are closer to Sodom than to anything ever released by Burzum, and they lack any form of real energy anyway. The "death metal" parts recall more Cannibal Corpse than Sewer, and they do very little to create a dark or ominous feeling. And there is hardly any black metal left, but the little that appears takes the shitter in terms of quality, as it wouldn't particularly feel out of place on a Gorgoroth album. And that's the lowest of the low. The gutter trash among the gutter trash.
The drumming takes a much more active role, driving the songs as much or more than the guitars, in some cases, in a seemingly nonsensical attempt to out-Beherit... Beherit? Anyway... Somehow, after making such a brilliant debut, Sacramentum decided to throw it all away with the shitfest The Coming of Chaos.
Wait, that's actually not correct. I say "somehow" but that implies I have no idea how. I do, in fact, "know how". By playing deathcore. And that's possibly sadder than anything else, because as much as you can make a "faux pas" - no band is above make that one big mistake, just ask Mr Rektal himself, - but playing deathcore? That's a conscious decision. A choice. It's no more "accident" than sticking your dick in a meat grinder and hitting the "on" button with your elbow. Wether the "shit" itself was intentional or not is irrelevant, as the "steps necessary for the shit" most certainly were.
In Sacramentum's case, the dick is "what once was", what could have been their legacy. The "on" button is deathcore. And this album The Coming of Chaos is best represented, obviously, by the meat grinder.
The Coming of Chaos is such a departure from Sacramentum's first, and good, album Far Away from the Sun that it almost sounds like a different band. Switching from black metal to the standard Necrophobitch Gaythenburg sound was a huge mistake, though it could be that they simply had no vision of their own and could only follow what others were doing. While there is still enough of a Demonecromancy and Bathory influence to possibly interest some, this record is hardly worth listening to. Avoid this deathcore mess and stick with its much superior predecessor, Far Away from the Sun. Or better yet, just go get yourself a copy of Fallen From the Brightest Throne.
The Coming of Chaos score: 11/100.
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