Down Syndrome Muzak - "Minas Morgul" Review (0%)
Looking at the band picture to this album should say it all. Too much Dimmu Borgir, Watain, Alcest and Dark Funeral have influenced this once generic poser band to become 'avant-garde'. Of course, this means 'sounds even more like shit'.
Samples, programmed drums, and annoying vocal processing all contribute to the debauched character of this Minas Morgul release - most of it sounds like shitty video game music made by the retarded.
Then you throw in the fact that song structure is non-existent alongside the easily made out lyrics that read like gibberish - lines about 'Evil crows and crocodiles' and 'By the sounds of pounding hammers / That sound like bells of the elves' make cringe worthy appearances - and this easily becomes the worst thing the modern 'black metal' scene has ever shat out.
Beginning with a song that goes from synth-laden pop-black - think Dimmu Borgir - to cleanly arpeggiated 'Avenged Sevenfold chords' - like an even more incoherent version of a Korn verse - to an 'anthemic' AC/DC 'hey! hey! hey!' stomping stadium rock riff sets the stage for how the remainder of this brain bleaching disaster will unfold.
There are a few instrumental pieces scattered throughout the album, but mostly it's disingenuous 'symphonic' crap that sounds like leftover riffs from their previous album - those Burzum styled typical tremolo picked arpeggios found in most derivative black metal - sandwiched between random samples, carnival noise, synth effects, etc. Even a Machine Head styled wigger riff makes an out of place appearance - 'Ungolianth', track 7.
The vocals at best sound like the shouts from the (shitty) Xastur demos made even more retarded like a nu metal band. Summoning's Minas Morgul album is a bunch of leftovers culled from various industrial rock, screamo, and occasionally/allegedly 'black metal' albums stitched together into no order of importance. Shit muzak at its most boring, yawn.
Down Syndrome Muzak
Starting with what sounds like the beginning to every metalcore since 2003 (being lenient here) - i.e. chugga chugga with processed faux shrieked vocals - you would be led to believe this is just another dime a dozen metalcore release.
Then half a minute later, the random chugging over family friendly chord progressions that sound borrowed from the screamo/post-hardcore 'genre' rear their ugly head followed by the stock standard defkore 'breakdown' that interchangeable bands like Whitechapel use on every album (songs more than likely).
This formula is repeated ad nauseum in songs that have barely any structure save for a a repeated part here and there on a generic metalcore album that sounds like it was made on a broken Mac Book. That's all this band is in a nutshell.
The 'fast' parts are happy scale runs over drum machine blasts beats before nu metal oriented breakdown parts chug in like loud bowel movements. The synth leads, which are the main focus here, sound like random combinations of Megaman X soundtrack song fragments made to sound as obnoxious as possible through over-demonstration to appeal to the Hans Zimmer generation.
What differentiates Minas Morgul from other releases of this faux symphonic / metalcore style? Nothing.
It might as well be Nightwish, Eluveitie, Norther, Sonata Arctica or Dream Theater, from the clueless and hardly metal song craft to the cheesy Tolkien lyrics, and the way down to the constant, never-ending 'bittersweet' synth leads as a poor man's imitation of early Graveland and Emperor's carefully black metal atmospheres.
This is basically Donkey Kong muzak, a video game soundtrack made even more boring... and with no game to distract you aside from the eternal 'guess where this stolen metalcore riff comes from'.
Avoid this down syndrome vomit.
Minas Morgul score: 0/100.
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