Review Summary: Sterilization in the form of music.
It must be hard to turn into a really consistent band, especially in the black metal genre. You can only work with so many moving parts at a time. Lots of black metal music finds greatness in a minimalistic approach. Bands like Darkthrone and Burzum made a living playing only a few riffs. Sadly for Ondfodt, and their new album
Dimsvall, they didn’t find the same consistency as their previous works.
Their last album
Det Österbottniska Mörkret was a barrage of melodic black metal riffage, a troll-like viking metal atmosphere and folky leanings that gave the album a feeling of triumph.
Dimsvall does not follow suit. For this album, the guys of Ondfodt kinda mailed it in with simple black metal riffs and none of the glorious atmosphere that made their last album so great.
Most of the riffs here sound stale and rehashed. Of course you’ll have SOME of that in this genre but man…at least have a bit of LIFE! Sadly there’s not much here to hang your hat on. The guys are playing like they had to force an album out and this is what they came up with. There just doesn’t seem to be much inspiration. All of the atmosphere of previous releases is replaced by sterile meloblack riffs and standard black metal blast beats. The tracks don’t have much room to breathe or differentiate from one another.
Even the vocals sound like they’ve lost some of their bite. The shrieks just aren’t as powerful as they used to be. They’re extremely one note and very predictable. We never get any clean chanting or lower growls like we did on the last album. I know I’m comparing a lot, but it’s hard not to when there’s such a massive dropoff in quality from one album to the next.
Ondfodt is a good black metal band, even great at times, but sadly
Dimsvall doesn’t display any of that greatness. One hundred bands have put out one hundred albums that sound exactly like this. There’s really no reason to jam something as sterile as this when we have many other albums that represent what black metal is much better. This is a swing and a miss, but hopefully the fellas can rebound and get back to making atmospheric and engaging music next time around.
