Ihsahn - Das Seelenbrechen
As much as I respect Ihsahn for his work with Emperor, Peccatum and Thou Shalt Suffer, his solo material has always been tough for me to review. I say this because Ihsahn was one of the guys who were at the very point of the Black Metal spear that pierced the stagnating Death Metal scene and deflated it like a cheap balloon. I would listen to the original Emperor/Enslaved split CD for hours at a time because it had that darkness about it that I want in Metal. I don’t idolize Ihsahn, but my level of respect for him is very high. Ihsahn’s solo work, though, is something that I don’t want to think about. For starters, I hate Progressive Metal. There are a few bands in the genre that I tolerate, but for the most part, I’d rather spend the rest of my life deaf than listen to it. That being said, Das Seelenbrechen is horrible. Even by Progressive Metal standards, it’s almost unlistenable. The songs are disjointed, unmemorable, and though things might make sense from a technical perspective, the structures are so fucked up that you literally have to be on some serious medication before any of this shit works. There’s very little consistency in the music and each song seems to go off in its own direction, making this album sound like a mix tape made by someone with ADHD. This kind of music is worse than navel gazing wankerdom. At least that has a point: It’s just a musician masturbating with his chosen instrument, showing off to his musician friends and writing music that only other wankers want to listen to. As stupid as that is, at least I can understand it. This LP is just experimentation for the sake of experimentation. It’s fucked up, weird and lacks any sort of musical direction. At least Samoth stuck with extreme Metal and produced some good stuff with Zyklon (his work with The Wretched End is less impressive, but still far better than this…). Das Seelenbrechen is just complete and total crap. I don’t say this often, but I want that 49 minutes of my life back.
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