After black metal collapsed, fans went looking for the next great genre to fill the void. Unfortunately, the only “new” developments post-1996 have been of retrogression. Whether combining metal with vapidity (“post-black metal”), commercialism ((Watain, Satyricon)), or frequently both; fans were left without any direction to look to. After reviewing the situation, some honest people realized that “progression” was a sham and the solution was to take metal back to its earlier underground roots in death and speed metal.
Enter Teitanblood.
First, it must be mentioned that this band has a great many features pulling it ahead of 98% of contemporary death and black metal bands. Most importantly, the band is actually metal. It is not pop, grunge, or Japanese videogame music masked with metal aesthetics. Second, the music is competently organized in a manner which facilitates quick understanding of what the band is trying to achieve. Tracks are chaotic bursts of energy which merge the frenetic, kinetic mayhem of black metal with the lucidity of structure offered by death metal. Stream of consciousness motion stays grounded by the relatively consistent vocals, which serve as an anchor between the listener and the assault.
However, this type of composition is not without its pitfalls: due to its nature, songs end up sounding relatively uniform. This is not unheard of in the realm of death metal; however, the band seems to be discomfited by this and thus inserts disruptive moments which share more in common with modern black metal than is comfortable. These consist of slower, “ritualistic” meditations, which in reality is merely minor chord noodling over constipated rantings. Presumably this is supposed to compensate the direct audial rampage offered by the higher-energy sections with a darker mood, but it ends up sounding like a gimmick.
For Teitanblood to progress, it needs to learn how to unify these tendencies into a coherent presentation. If it achieves this, it will deserve all the praise heaped upon it now, but genuinely – as of now, the universal praise of this band reveals the general starvation of the underground metal community for quality releases.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgQ03q0IaGo
Tags: death metal, teitanblood
ADRAMEFELCH blows but this band is 10000 times worse. all surface no substance. only the anon wannabes over at puklear war now would like this shit and they like anything that appeals to their loser living in a tool shed in grandmaw’s backyard mentality.
Both are generic, but in different territories.
However, I would prefer Adramelech — though they’re atypical Finn-death noodles. Both are better than most (top 98%; as this review identifies Teitanblood as).
There’s been no substantial innovation in metal as of late.
Why does Adramelech blow?
thanx so much for this awesome recommendation Jon Wild!
This band is way coolerr.
I thought seven challices was good but not terrible. It’s unfortunate that teitanblood didn’t focus on writing better riffs, choosing instead to go with the indiscernible wall of noise guitar that fails in creating any feeling. The slower sections of this record are some of the most uninspired “riffs” I’ve heard in a long time. NWN crowd will “total support” the bajeeezus outta this record and Teitanblood will forsake the potential they had shown on that first record.
I think this album’s relative lack of riffs is actually one of its strengths. I don’t usually like to throw around words like “primitive”, as they’ve lost meaning through overuse. This album, however, is primitive to the core. It’s death and black metal at the most instinctive level. All of the composition in this album happens at the macro-level – shifts in the wall of noise make sense and convey something coherent. But at the micro-level, it’s just brutally communicative sound. In some respects, an album like this points as much in the direction of death-industrial as death metal. I’m also aware that the guy behind the project is a big fan of Krzysztof Penderecki, and I think that shows, too: linear development at the larger compositional level, but not much in the way of phrases/riffs.
The issue I take is the lack of substantial feeling inherent in an ambient drone of one note. Look at BoydRice/NON and notice how his arrangements of pure noise manage to convey something in a way far more profound than what Teitanblood has produced here. If I were looking internal to metal, I would point to Conqueror, who’s frantic structure and pacing kept each song sounding unique and capable of expressing some imagery in the walls of sound. I think Havohej’s Man and Djinn and Tungkat Bloodwand succeed where “Death” falls short.
Granted, I would much rather listen to this than garbage like Proclamation and I might put it well above Beherit’s At the Devil’s Studio 1990 and Oath of Black Blood. Blasphemy I know, but there it is.
Or Intolitarian, or K.K. Null, or Brighter Death Now and others.
Yes. I had Intolitarian in mind on the way into work this morning. Berserker Savagery succeeds because it has no pretensions of being music and is free to use sound and frequency as a conduits to the primal. I firmly believe that if teitanblood wants to play metal which serves as a conduit to that end, they need to focus on what makes metal great and I’ll tell you that it is not a guy yelling over the white noise of television backed by competent drums and lackluster doom riffs.
Thanks Jon for shedding light on this band and their contemporaries who are currently achieving alot of recognition amongst metalheads these days. While the artists are probably cool dudes to hang out with after the show, their music conveys nothing of importance. Cut and paste death and black metal that lacks the true old school aesthetic. This music is just kind of “there”. Well executed and rehearsed and the artists know metal history and its key players; yet they do not create music with the heart and soul those key players once did.
I think this post betrays a lack of awareness of the significance of bands like Necrovore and Sadistik Exekution with regards to the “true old school aesthetic”.
His post reads like he was reading off a script he doesn’t fully understand.
I wonder. Who could have wrote that script?
I’d like to see Bestial Warlust critiqued here.
Australia is a total failure at metal.All of their bands are random with no melody or melody with no structure. It is as if the Aussies are able to understand metal as it should be on paper but can’t make a band that is good to listen to, they record “primtive” (incompetent) college dorm room death metal or horrible melodic bands that are like Cradle of Filth paying less attention to what they are doing. They aren’t wimps or posers but they just suck.
Good to see you back here, bitterman, even though I don’t agree with you on this, you’re an interesting and morbidly funny opinion to have around.
I wouldn’t call Australia a failure, they simply approach metal in a different respect than the USA or Europe does. Sort of like Japan or the Middle East. If you’re rabid for the technicality of US death metal, or the soaring melodies of prime European black metal, you may not be satisfied with the Aussies’ interpretations. However, I think that on their own merits some Aussie bands come up with stuff that the other two regions wish they could’ve made (I’m thinking of SadEx’s first two albums in particular here). I always enjoy seeing what a particular country/region/etc can do with metal, even if it sucks. One must experiment in order to find out what works.
New Zealand, on the other hand, are great at metal.
Ulcerate is not great.
“Ulcerate” Nice try.
I honestly have to wonder if bitterman is the stereotypical basement dweller heavy metal fan, only with an extremely defined taste. All of his strong opinions and condescending tone scream of a very lonely man. But hey I could be wrong.
This band’s demo was worth hearing, and almost entirely unrelated to anything they’ve done since; one of the few attempts at working in the style of Demoncy or Profanatica that managed to keep the tight structural focus of an album like “Joined in Darkness” or “Profanatitas De Domonatia” without succumbing to monotony like most Von-worship bands do.
Then they did that split album, and it was total fucking moron from there on out.
This sounds like early Incantation or a Funebrarum band being lazy and playing Harmony Corruption riffs over blast beats. Zzzzzz…