Satyricon - Satyricon
When I first heard Satyricon back in the days of Dark Medieval Times and The Shadowthrone, they were considered one of the leading voices in the post-Euronymous Norwegian Black Metal scene. While I never considered them to be top-tier, Satyr and Frost did produce some good music. After their third LP, Nemesis Divina, I started losing interest in them. They were going a different direction and I wasn’t much interested in the music that they were putting out. It’s been a number of years since I last heard Satyricon (outside of the odd listen to one of their first three albums), so when I saw this LP at my local record store, I decided to see what they sounded like now. Let’s just say that I was more than a little bit disappointed. Compared to previous Satyricon releases, this new LP is pretty bland. Satyr and Frost have gone back to a more orthodox Black Metal sound, but they’ve incorporated some slower traditional Heavy Metal riffing in with their worship of old Bathory. It’s more melodic and though the riffs are more memorable, the plodding speed and lack of intensity make this really hard to get excited about. I went back and listened to my old Satyricon albums for comparison purposes and the differences were pretty stark. Satyr and Frost sound positively sedated here. I used to criticize Frost’s playing because he tended to stick to only one speed: Warp Ten. Now, I wish he’d get fired up and start blasting away because I know he can do it. It almost sounds like they lost their fire. Even though the music is note-perfect, the lack of feeling or intensity sinks this. I actually felt sad while listening to it. And not because the music was so morose that it evoked that emotion. I felt sad because the music on this LP was so empty. It was like listening to a band that’s just going through the motions. They don’t have anything to prove to anyone. Satyricon made their mark on the scene years ago. I’ve heard this LP described as the band’s most introspective work ever. If it is, they obviously looked inside themselves and discovered that their souls were missing. I haven’t completely written Satyricon off, though. If they can find their lost intensity and put some feeling into their next LP, it might just be legendary. This one, though, definitely isn’t.
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