Music that you find bland tends to be the hardest to review. There’s only so many times you can stretch “it’s so unremarkable that there is not really anything to say about it” into a full-length review. But let’s try anyway.
I’d say that this album’s biggest flaw overall is that the songs have no structure and no shape. I don’t mean structure as in a conventional verse/chorus format, because I’m completely fine with songs that don’t use that. I mean that the songs on this album feel like a blurry mass of sound where no melody, and only a few interesting elements here and there, emerge.
Worst of all, a mass of clichés. I think this album uses every typical riff you’ve already heard in every long-ish black metal song. The high, cold and slightly repetitive riffs, the drumming, the raspy vocals and the attempts at creating an eerie atmosphere… yeah, that’s a black metal album, alright. This is such a typical black metal album that is basically becomes black metal-inspired background music.
Unfortunately, it’s the type of black metal background music that also gets really repetitive. The tempo and the mood don’t change much in that album. That’s kind of a shame, considering that since the songs are all titled “Chapter” from 1 to 7. I guess they’re supposed to tell a story (I can’t understand the lyrics, unfortunately), but while it’s a story where a lot must happen, it’s not a story that really gets an emotional response from me, and it seems that the storyteller is not really interested in telling it.
Well, he shows more interest in some parts, like the must faster pace of “Kapittel V”, or the slightly doom metal-like slow pace and the clean singing parts of “Kapittel IV”. Or in that repetitive but peculiar riff in “Kapittel II”. Or the keyboards, heavy riffs and almost power metal-like ending in “Kapittel VI”. Or in the last chapter, which has all the energy missing from the rest of the album, all the changes of pace and the melodies, and is the only track to actually feel like it’s telling a story. As I said, there are some nice ideas that emerge from the mass of sounds. There is some potential, I think, and the instrumentals are pretty impressive from someone who plays all the instruments on his own.
But sometimes that one nice idea is the only thing a song has, and it tends to repeat it a little too much. I’d say that unfortunately, only “Kapittel VI” and “Kapital VII” are close to being actually good songs rather than slightly bland songs with some nice ideas. The album quickly becomes too long, and drowns in uninteresting music, just how a story can drown in uninteresting details. That album is far from terrible, but it’s a little too generic to be really enjoyable.
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