Olc Sinncir
The Throne Of Dead Emotions
2.4
Its not that I don’t like black metal, I just don’t like bland average French black metal. This is simply one of those album where you wonder why it was released, and my xenophobia isn’t at fault here as I rather enjoy Destinity, Lactrodectus and even Antaeus, but this is simply dull, lifeless and uninspired raw black metal regardless of country of origin. The only thing that contains any remotely interesting is the stage names and occasional French lyrics as Aseal, Umbrae, Curufinwe, Lord Askaron and Anddralath Svartsinn while slightly unique still belt out this twaddle. Forests, the devil, Sabbaths, arcane acts all ripe with type o’s litter the mundane lyrics, and then it’s delivered with a power chord infatuation, screeching vocals and a weed eater guitar tone. Ugh. To black metal fans this may be True and Kult, but to me this is simply Tripe and Krap, and that’s trying to be objective. To make matters worse the generally tepid songs are all drawn out, lengthy efforts, that increase the torture, only the odd attempt at an epic, atmospheric slowdown ( “L’Epitre de Purete”) bring any real relief, but even then it’s so rudimentary its pitiful. What also bothers me is the whole album lacks any innate black metal venomous urgency, I could appreciate the simplistic song structures if they were delivered with a caustic vehemence or deep seeded nihilism, but the soft production and lack of dynamic riffs leaves the whole thing not only terribly written and played but also superficial. Literally, not one single moment from this album is worth your time, unless you absolutely must own every French black metal album ever released. For a second I though, I might enjoy the midsection of the meandering title track, but when you hear that the drummer is actually off beat for most of the epic blast beat, the French spoken word interlude just tops it off with a bitter, rotten cherry. In fact the drummer is actually worse during the attempted bombastics, as the very nature of blast beats covers his lack of skill, but during slower more precise moments its painfully obvious (noticeably on “The Scars of the Martyrs”) there’s a percussive problem. The Throne of Dead Emotions is one of those rare albums with no redeeming features whatsoever, and I recommend you perform a self vasectomy with a starved ferret than listen to this as many times as I had to for this review.
