May 24, 2010 • Candlelight Records
I know I'm nowhere near to scraping the bottom of the barrel on Bandcamp's black metal page, but sometimes I wonder if the selection is getting a little thin. There's always good stuff to be had, but truly innovative and creative bands seem to be getting harder to come by.
Take Blood of Kingu; they don't do a whole lot that's particularly new—they simply turn the blast-o-meter up to 11 and don't stop for forty-five minutes. Not that that's a bad thing, of course, because often that's exactly what I'm after. And they do a good job, I guess; the guitar riffs are a bit stock for black metal but they certainly get it done effectively. However, there's something to be said for a bit of dynamics—on most of my listens to this album, I got about halfway through but only thought I was maybe three songs in because so much of this music is indistinguishable.
What is a bit interesting about their sound is this weird, subtle, underlying industrial element that is mostly expressed through the totally bizarre bass sound. "Gnarled" is the best word I can think of to describe it. It gives parts of the album a very hollow and cold mechanical feeling which is kind of neat (though the novelty does wear off).
This is by no means a bad album, but I'd say it's probably not one that's really worth looking into unless you're the kind of person who is desperate for something new in the genre and don't really care much what it sounds like. It'll scratch the black metal itch, but there are so many albums out there that sound just like it that I can't really give it much of a recommendation. Again, it's not bad; it's maybe just too generic.
No comments:
Post a Comment