Article by David Rosales
Avantgarde-isms do not belong in metal. Avant-garde is the area where musicians go to publicly masturbate with their “interesting” ideas that may or may not (more likely the latter) contain abstract implications which must be explained by the author. Metal is about embedded communication through codified tradition, about rebellious purposefulness and a rejection of your posturing. Aluk Todolo presents us with tracks that are meant to be trance-like, and in their impetus end up mixing what is essentially an African ritualistic beat with post-rock noises and an ostinato bass without understanding how out of place all of this is beyond their sterile academic conceptions. To anyone who sees the spirits in music, to anyone that will see music come alive, this is the sort of travesty that modern thinking wants to pretend is music.
On the emotional side, anyone may enjoy this like they might enjoy a crack injection; after all, this is about as coherent as that little trip appears to be when you hear crackheads speak. On the intellectual side, there are plentiful experiments that provide a listener with new patterns and textures to brood over. However, these are interesting not for what they tell, but only for their outer craftsmanship. As an integral whole, however, Voix is nothing except in the minds of those who would impose on it an artificially-created meaning from the outside.
Tags: 2016, aluk todolo, crypto-indie, sadistic metal reviews, voix
Stupid Avant-Garde music. You know how many times I’ve tried, failed and lied trying to get into The Residents just to impress a girl in a post-modern lit class? Well, once, but it felt like a hundred fucking times.
I think Avant-Garde may have meant something for music at one point (maybe in that weird late 60s NY heroin/warhol-y/lou reed-y scene?), but now it just seems to be an umbrella for untalented people to shill their wares under false pretenses. Blech.
And no longer will I be tricked into listening to Thy Catalfaque, SIGH, or Ved Buens Ende…ever again because of that damn word!
who ever said that Aluk Todolo are metal?
Voix approximates and appropriates ” (black) metal ” (one of its tags on Bandcamp) for its own purposes. Your label “crypto-” seems appropriate, since the music itself does not clearly communicate an intent/message/purpose. So, the default ‘purpose’ becomes, “what kind of (musical) sounds can we make, for their own sake?” If listeners confess some sort of visual, auditory, emotional, psychological, etc., resonances with the ‘music’, then the artist responds, “Well, bully for you, then; I’m glad we could facilitate that for you.” And this is exactly what “post”-music is all about. Chromatic/tonal/atonal/etc. exploration (I daresay ‘luxuriation’) of sound (phonology), with little to no regard for syntax (structure) or semantics (meaning). The listener applies these last two after the fact.
As an aside, do we discuss Metal in these terms? What is Metal’s phonology, syntax and semantics?
Good job Mr. Pop Psychologist, I’m glad we have people like you around to tell us what purpose some band had in mind when they made some album.
Well, I love it.
Of course you do. :)
Avant-garde in metal has always struck me as annoying and pretentious. I had a friend that would play the shit out of ved beuns ende and dodheimsgard’s supervillian outcast and could not hear anything I liked. It’s as though they tried to invent a new style and failed miserably.
What’s so avant-garde about this, exactly? Oh right, nothing. Haven’t heard this album yet, but all Aluk Todolo’s previous albums are fuckin’ great. This isn’t “black metal” at all — I mean, it might have some ‘blackened’ elements in its sound but it’s not even really metal music. Frankly, this review seems kind of pointless — note how it could be copy-paste from a million other reviews because it faps to “what metal is about” and says hardly anything specific about the music itself.
el avangar es como mosica fotorista y de masturbacion paja como mi hejo el mallor todo el dia dale que te pego que impeto dios mio por queme castegas de esta manera @rosario traeme hedromiel gracias en coerno de macho cabreo como satan demoneo te reviento tio mierdas no me cuques el ojo desde el inferno que te doy
Si senior
This is some of the gayest shit to pass through here, really you guys are going far out of the way to find bullshit, mock the current distro a “early contender for album of the year” CDs that come out every week.
Unfortunately, we don’t need to go out our way; this is like, part of the usual promo stuff. This and the generic funderground war metal bands or crappy retro acts. It’s like they sign anyone and en masse.
What if I told you that bands actually send in this music with the expectation that we will review it?
PA K KIERES SABER ESO JAJA SALUDOS