Review Summary: The best thing I can say about this album is that it made me think about walking my cat.
As far as bands that should have become absolute jokes a decade ago, Satyricon have somehow managed to keep themselves from becoming caricatures of themselves over the years. Despite the inherent hilarity of being most often pegged as a “Black ‘N Roll” band these days, they’ve at least put out albums that, while not being the genre masterpiece
Nemesis Divina is, aren’t a total embarrassment to themselves and their fans. So, in a bit of warped irony, it is the new self titled
Satyricon that finally sees them become an absolute waste of a band.
Here’s the thing about the record: holy fu
ck is it boring. It’s so boring, I spent about a week trying to write a review and literally could not be ***ted to do so. For comparison, here are things that I did and enjoyed far more than listening to this record:
-Feeding my cat.
-Sending people pictures of my cat on Snapchat.
-Wondering if my cat would submit to being walked in public.
-Looking at my cat and realizing he was already watching me, daring me to try.
-Getting fired from work. Seriously, that was a more interesting and exciting time than this album.
-Spending an entire day watching League of Legends World Championships. During this, I looked at the word document I was writing in, and decided that my life would be
even sadder if I went back to listening to this album.
What makes
Satyricon so boring? It’s a mish mash of different styles, from classic Satyricon “the darkness of winter IS SO COLD IN MY SOUL” style, to the harshness of Darkthrone, to the theatrical black metal of Bathory, and then of course into the incredible balladry of 80’s *** metal. Despite that, everything on the record sounds incredibly neutered. Nothing here has a kick to it, nothing catches the ear. The riffs are recycled and tame, the drumming is weirdly mixed up and down, and the songwriting is simply boring. It’s great that they’re trying to branch out and explore a bit more, but when the result is schlocky bull*** like “Phoenix”, meandering for 6 minutes while going nowhere, and “Our World, It Rumbles Tonight” which, despite having one of the only decent riffs on the record, wastes it in one of the most banal songs I’ve heard all year, it’s hard to get behind whatever the band was trying to do.
“The Infinity of Time and Space” is a good song though. I’ll probably listen to it again in ten years, after I’m done doing the infinite amount of other things I’d rather do than sit through another toothless listen of
Satyricon.
