Review Summary: Remember in my review of Triumvirate when I said I was going to check out this band's earlier material?
I did.
I wish I hadn't.
The first time I heard The Monolith Deathcult's
Triumvirate was during a period in which the lion's share of what I listened to was death metal, and, as such, it was getting boring. Enter
The Monolith Deathcult's Triumvirate. Here was something excitingly fresh! (Albeit in a simplistic and gimmicky way.) Something to give hope to a rapidly stagnating genre! Now, when one hears something that they just rave about to everyone they know, and listen to nonstop, one is likely to want to check out their previous material. (After all, the quality of a band's music is usually inversely proportional to the number of years they've worked, amirite?) So excited was I, that I put down
twenty-five dollars to have [b]The White Crematorium[/i] imported from Belgium. One day, I received in the mail a small package of a familiar shape; I feverishly tore it open, and inside was my gem -
The White Crematorium. I carefully placed the CD on my computer's disc tray, and, as soon as I could, began to listen.....
The next realization was a slow and painful one - I was listening to ****.
I listened to the whole thing, hoping that I would at least get a couple of good tracks, but aside from a few isolated seconds of (slightly) above-mediocrity, it was pure disappointment. When looking at the tracks before actually playing them, I noticed that they were relatively short, with the exception of one. I thought that this would mean more condensed versions of the epics The Monolith Deathcult composed on
Triumvirate, but what it really meant was, thankfully, a mercifully shorter sentence.
Another complaint that I wish I didn't have to make: on this album The Monolith Deathcult perpetrated one of the most heinous transgressions against not sucking imaginable - piss-like homogeneity. I mean, there is
no way to differentiate one track from another. They all begin in one of two highly predictable ways: Blast beats, or whammy-bar masturbating "solos." Wait, I need to correct myself. There is a third Intro Method - whammy-bar masturbating "solo" OVER a blast beat. I apologize.
Now, one more point I feel I need to touch on is the fact that this is an earlier release, and does not reflect the band's sound today. However, this is a review of
The White Crematorium.
So, here's the breakdown:
PROS: Sometimes, for a few seconds, this record didn't sound like a two out of five.
CONS: The rest of the time, it did.
Two out of five.
