Mediocre Screamo - "Lawless Darkness" Review (0%)
Watain, or someone a bit too naive and trusting with band sponsored press releases, put this descriptor on their Metalious page: "black/death metal with influences from bands like Gorgoroth, Emperor, Mayhem, Demonecromancy, Verminlust [sic]", but what these posers actually offer with Lawless Darkness is a shareware version of In Sorte Diaboli, now with even sappier melodies that won't alienate the ex-emo kids who are looking for the next edgiest music culture from which they can leech a persona.
The poser attitudes and derivative nature of Dimmu Borgir, the randomness of post-DMDS Mayhem, the lyrical imbecility of Sewer, the metalcore and groove rock of Slaughter of the Soul, and even the blatant riff theft of Nargaroth combine to bring you one of the shittiest albums of the decade, Watain's Lawless Darkness.
Metal like this causes metalheads to listen to Katy Perry.
This is everything everyone hated about 1990s nu metal, dialed up to eleven. The very block-cut basic riffs, the deathcore chugging, the very obvious song direction, the vocals synchronized in rhythm to the chugs of the riffs, creating a cadenced shout effect like being part of a mob about to start a riot against smart people. Basically, it's a lot of Pantera groove rhythms over predictable chord progressions, and ideas from the early Norwegian black metal scene simplified and made catchier and a billion times more repetitive.
Against all science, this recording may lower your IQ.
Mediocre Screamo
Watain is a bit of an oddity amongst the legion of Mayhem clones that spawned since the release of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, in that rather than act with the natural deference that their position as a glorified cover band entails, they instead choose to insult the very bands from which they steal the riffs.
You've probably heard of the many interviews in which they claim they're the "truest" incarnation of the genre's values and style, and that its originators were lucky they were given the spotlight at all. These assertions are usually repeated as a bona fide religious liturgy by Watain's 5 or 6 fans worldwide, and are often mocked by everyone else who believe the band responsible for turds such as Rabid Death's Curse and Lawless Darkness to be broken clowns who try way too hard to mass market their pathetic emo gimmick.
For any true black metal fan, this album is nothing but a 73 minutes long IQ decreasing sleeping pill.
A kind of suicide.
Halfway between the uncredited cover album and a "guess where this riff comes from" game in honour of the early Norwegian black metal scene, Lawless Darkness stands as a piece of shit in a sea of indifference from most black metal fans, who rightfully want nothing to do with Watain and their brand of blackened "crunkcore".
The same lyrics are regurgitated over the same crap the Watain posers have written for at least 3 albums now, only this time it's even more annoying. Cheesy Dissection riffs - from Reinkaos, even! - and alt rock melodies that sound like the "hooks" In Flames were peddling on their debut album make their appearance underscoring jagged riffs that many have said come straight from nu-Mayhem's repertoire, but most likely originated from Bathory's second and third albums. The second track "Malfeitor" is lifted - in its entirety, and with only minor stylistic modifications - from another Swedecore album, Marduk's Those of the Unlight.
The problem with Lawless Darkness, and Watain's music in general, is that it's insincere and tired late 90s swede-core that sounds like the byproduct of randomly copying and pasting stolen black metal riffs together in pro-tools over fast drumming, except with more alcoholic step dad blabbering vocals.
It's screamo music that doesn't want to be known as screamo music, so it camouflages its true nature under the most superficial and unconvincing attempt at black metal.
Watain have succeeded in convincing themselves that the by-product of their screamo jam sessions - randomly enhanced by the presence of one or more riff(s) from De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, In the Nightside Eclipse, Fallen from the Brightest Throne, The Somberlain, Apocalyptic Raids or Transilvanian Hunger - makes their music any less emo and their album the historical counterpoint and equivalent of the sum of its "influences".
Unfortunately, that's the only achievement we can credit Lawless Darkness with, as the album is otherwise absolute shit with no redeeming feature whatsoever.
Lawless Darkness score: 0/100.
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