The Meads of Asphodel - The Murder of Jesus the Jew
Oh man, The Meads of Asphodel is so fucking schizophrenic. The guys just keep getting weirder with each new recording. Their Black Metal base is still there, but they juxtapose that with Prog Rock wankery, horns, choirs, Punk Rock influences, Medieval Folk goofiness, spoken word passages, possibly a kazoo, and other various insanity within the songs. It’s just too much. If the different elements were somehow layered, maybe this many diverse styles could work together (although I don’t see how), but one thing after another like this destroys any flow the tracks might have, and makes these more collections of disparate ideas (and many bad ones, at that) than songs. Imagine a steak. You’d likely want some type of spices on it and a potato to go along. Some people add grilled onions or even disgusting mushrooms. And all that might make sense, like Black Metal with some Death Metal or Doom added in for flavor. But The Meads start out with perhaps not the best steak and then season it with coconut, burnt wood shavings, and snail slime, roll it up like a burrito, beat it with a small hammer, and sprinkle on some Ortho Max pesticide, and then declare that if you don’t like the resulting toxic mess, well, you just don’t understand gourmet food! My point being that some things go well together and some do not. The Meads of Asphodel is weird for weirdness’ sake alone, and would like for you to believe that constitutes art. Write a song that actually makes sense, and that I can remember, and maybe I’ll call that art. The frustrating part is that these eccentric Englishmen could easily compose compelling songs -there are hints of them all over this album- but apparently have no desire to do so.
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