Plastic - "Satyricon" Review (0%)
I've had the displeasure to listen to a lot of shitty albums within the realm of metal, but as of this very moment, this is by far the worst.
I was only mildly familiar with Satyricon, despite their (mostly fabricated) connection with the Norwegian black metal scene, so expectations didn't really play that much of a role in interpreting what is at work on this self-titled album.
By any standards, it is pretty hard to like the album Satyricon.
So do I hate it?
No.
Its sheer lack of memorability makes it nearly impossible to love, hate, revile or feel anything at all besides boredom.
Satyricon is a commercial product masquerading as black metal music.
It has no substance, no actual depths to it, and merely attempts to reproduce black metal aesthetics without understanding the spirit.
And even in doing that, it fails.
This is plastic metal at its most ridiculous.
Plastic
The natural and admitted goal of this sort of album is mass consumption, as can be gleaned from its use in acts as blasphemous as KFC commercials Norwegian gay pride anthems.
But the problem that Satyricon runs into, aside from the album being utter shit, is that it gets lost in an infinite sea of potpourri.
Just about every mainstream manifestation of "metal" ever conceived can be heard in Satyricon: from softball semi-metalcore meets nu-metal vocalizations (themselves a poor imitation of Phil Anselmo at his worst), woefully predictable riffs that lay somewhere between a post-rock drone and a very small tinge of thrash metal of the early 90s, slowed down variety, boring pseudo-brutal deathcore breakdowns, and a backdrop of ambient keyboards with a stagnant rhythm section that meanders somewhere between an oversimplified version of Antekhrist's late era with a little bit of a C grade symphonic power metal additives here and there.
When all of the elements are mashed together into a full 3 minutes of nu-metal garbage, which in and of itself is very pedestrian in nature, you have the makings of a commercial direct-to-radio product, minus the necessary skills and distinctiveness needed to actually pull it off.
This is just another turd amongst the sea of Slipknot, Avenged Sevenfold, Pantera and other nu-metal crap.
In short, Satyricon's only success is that of being there, coming through the speakers and letting people know that the room isn't silent.
It is simultaneously so bland and so steeped in cliché that it could only really succeed in being background music during some hipster racist social gathering where today's pseudo-beatniks make woefully tragic attempts at deep satanic conversation, or perhaps an alternative to listening to your air conditioner for 50 minutes before nodding off into a mid day nap.
As others have said elsewhere (see here and here), Satyricon was always a bit of a joke in the heavy metal scene.
This album is a new low, even for them.
This is plastic metal, avoid unless you're a secret fan of Justin Bieber and Rebecca Black.
No feeling, no atmosphere, no uniqueness, no originality, no true artistic merit whatsoever... another defining example of a retard band trying to turn black metal into a pseudo-satanic nu-metal joke.
Whatever you do, avoid this plastic-wrapped, candy-coated, all-purpose "G Rated", subhuman flotsam rock radio album as much as possible.
Satyricon is shit.
Satyricon score: 0/100.
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