Council of the Fallen
Deciphering the Soul
4.9
I am trying harder than a constipated old man on the toilet to get into this band and their album, but it just isn’t happening. No matter how many “all-stars” make this band up, it just doesn’t do a damn thing for me. Council of the Fallen play blackened death, employing a formula that is just getting so fucking old, which is lower vox trading off w/ a black metal type screech. The material is basically percussive death in nature, w/ plentiful black metal rhythms behind systematic blast beats, but the riffs are so goddamn boring most of the time. No, make that ALL of the time. A few moments of horrendously off-key clean forest-esque chanting just do not belong here. Are they trying to call trolls out of their redwood trees? I support COTF’s decision to “try something new” to try to individualize their songs but lets not try to put a house together w/ staples. It can’t be the production that deters me, because it’s damn good. It lacks dimension, but it’s still good. What makes this album fall so flat is the nothingness of the riffing and insistence to tread water in the middle of an ocean that has been charted so many times by so many different bands. Even if you think you haven’t heard this, you have. Pretty much zero highlights to speak of and the energy level of a leper.
Your money? Save it. Or send it my way, whichever you prefer. Millennium metal should be about fresh material. If you have a basic death metal album w/ a basic black metal album, then you’ve heard Council of the Fallen.
