Review Summary: You knew sadness, you knew anger, you knew happiness, all transferred by sound waves, but have you ever thought that they can be used to transfer an ache in the stomach lasting for an hour too?
There is not another album quite like Dopethrone, and none could have been created in any other era. This album is a free, degenerated expression of a tortured mind that exists only in the capitalistic era where being a hypocrite is looked up upon and where mental people are allowed to freely open their mind musically.
The album opens up with Vinnum Sabbathi, which I like to see as a demo track, as it gives the listener a taste of things to come. It shows the main elements that will be used throughout the album and more importantly, it quickly gets the listener into the record. The sample of this track is “There are a couple ways you can get out… The first is death… The other… is mental institutions.” This track accurately captures the band’s thoughts and the flow of the album, hopeless, harsh, despised by the norm for its instability caused by their double edged sword.
Funerapolis starts off with a very calm melody which is more common outside of the stoner metal genre. Think of the opening as the feeling you get when gray clouds roll above your head and it is just about to start raining. The rain, well, more like the damn tornado comes with the tempo change and it is merciless and it will definitely hurt your unprepared head almost, if not, physically.
After this track, the album slowly starts to get worse on your stomach with each passing track consisting of more painful unmelodic bass sections with very silent guitars in the background. It is a hospital, a mental one, you are surrounded by doctors who look down on your body lying there in pain without affinity and all you think about is the sweet release of death. Without a doubt, the album wouldn’t have been complete without the second to last track: We hate you. This track is a release of the pain, in a way which has no alternative, a rampage of bypassers with an assault rifle, irresponsible and immoral, but with a bitter taste in your tongue which only you know that you need for survival.
Dopethrone is a track very similar to Funerapolis in structure, not so painful, a little bit relaxing, but very needed to keep you thinking about the album after listening to it as your hate has just went out with the previous track. It contains a long silent section which I recommend you spend reflecting about the album. It ends with a neat sample which says something about Satanism, but the words are not as important as the unrepentantly capitalistic voice.
P.S. Despite all the arguments, I don’t think that you need to be high or drunk to enjoy the masterpiece that this album is. And to all the people rating it 4/5, please suggest me a better alternative of pain to this. I know the album doesn’t sound nice, but mental people exist and our greed is their creator.
