Conqueror wanted to be a part of the “scene” but did not have musical ideas. The band discovered that the muddied sound of early Beherit and Blasphemy circa Fallen Angel of Doom could be used to obfuscate their dearth of ideas. Furthermore the hostility between the Norwegian scene and the rest of black metal could be amplified under false pretenses while not offering any truly satisfying alternative themselves. Basically, point to candy assed pop drivel like Dark Funeral but go to the other end of the spectrum entirely with a paper thin wall of television white noise with a drunken chipmunk howling nonsense. Conqueror’s “music” is structured which ironically stands contra to the concept of all out war. A little anarchy would at the very least allow the essence of battle to bubble up from the pot. Instead it’s a tame morass of very low effort grindcore riffs and mostly incomprehensible low E-string noodling. The best that can be said about Conqueror is that J. Reed has an identifiable sound.
War Cult Supremacy was “composed” (to use the word in the common rather than literal sense) based off of the idea that a million monkeys banging on typewriters will, given enough time, eventually produce the entire works of Shakespeare. However these guys don’t give the music nearly enough time (if that is even possible) so the “throw shit at the wall and see what sticks” just results in a surface covered with stinking brown stains. War Cult Supremacy was obviously written by and for people whose sense of pattern recognition is so critically underdeveloped that melodic continuity is alien concept to them, as a typewriter is to a cow.
Conqueror cultivate an ill-fitting mood. War Cult Supremacy doesn’t sound chaotic, dangerous, or violent, which is what WAR is so it fails hard at being WAR metal. This is coma ward metal. In terms of immediate tangible experience, does a woosh of static accented by powerchord-lite sound threatening to anyone? Does white noise sound dangerous? Does changing the pitch of that white noise do anything? No, no, no. Let’s be honest, those qualities are abstracted out of extra musical content. For example, blast beats are “supposed” to be harsh and warlike But in this context they are actually metronomic and lulling. When I zone out listening to it, the repetitive bounciness of War Cult Supremacy reminds me of a humming transformer on a malfunctioning utility pole.
Conqueror occasionally use samples to differentiate War Cult Supremacy‘s compositions in the style of a cheesy hardcore punk album. Unlike a beatdown band, these samples are wimpy: Conqueror copy-pasted Wojciech Kilar’s score from the Gary Oldman Dracula with Winona Ryder where Dracula cries like thirteen year old girl to add some bullshit romance sub-plot for goth appeal. Choosing samples from Francis Ford Coppola’s emasculated adaptation of Dracula instead of Christopher Lee identified Conqueror as Hot Topic “black metal”, a more hardcore-rooted Cradle of Filth. Moreover, this bitch-made move clarified their targeted audience: mall punks, noise rockers, and idiots who would buy the album solely for its superficial shitty production aesthetics.
What motivated Conqueror to attempt to join the black metal scene though and why were they accepted by the Full Moon and Nuclear War Now crowd? Easier to produce while drugged out? A drunken experience with a machine gun? Conqueror were just incompetent and couldn’t play anything more complex than randomly chromatic, bouncy punk riffs. In a shocking display of intelligence, Conqueror had the self-awareness to realize this, tricking the musically ignorant into thinking that Conqueror were playing this crap intentionally.
Conqueror cargo cult copied of the aesthetics of an earlier style and attemped to pass it off as the real thing. If the Transilvanian Hunger clones were fucking a corpse, Conqueror’s chosen paraphilias were car exhaust pipes and the umbrella holes in the middle of patio tables as Conqueror didn’t even actually play metal. That the mainstream metal media bought their ruse shows that they couldn’t and still can’t recognize a wooden runway built by men in loincloths as different from an actual airport staffed with air traffic controllers when it comes to the genre; The media and “scene” refuse to call spades spades or even recognize them as such. The rewards are even the same as a cargo cult: materiel from tourists visiting the wooden runway and social acceptance among the tribe; materiel being beer, drugs, and groupies instead of industrially-manufactured goods.
Tags: 1999, canada, conqueror, drone, Grindcore, Hardcore Punk, hipster bullshit, noise, nuclear war now! productions, scenesters, War Cult Supremacy, War Metal
This album is 17 years old…why dig it up and blast it now?
I predict the entire DLA is going to be systematically re-reviewed as Brett gets older and more bitter toward his metal past.
As Nietzsche said, the closest we can come to Absolute Truth is by absorbing as many different perspectives as possible. Approaching metals canon thusly is a healthy practice.
That would be like Stephen King editing all his old books with a new foreword that says “this book shouldn’t be read anymore because i have developed a new style of writing which conflicts with my old writing style”. (DISCLAIMER: DLA reviews arent as good as King’s writing) I’m just trying to make a point that it seems silly to flame really old albums that may or may not have made an impression on a particular scene many years ago.
All the silly scene references aside, this is a cool album and for the time was probably what was needed for the extreme metal crowd when you had fruity,polished Swedish black metal funneling into your ears. Better to leave this one in the vault and to not get offended when it gets reissued(frequently for some reason) as it carries little weight today…
No it isn’t anything like that because DMU has not been “just Prozak” for a long while. Likewise you can look to AIDS critical publications like Rolling Stone who have an open record of revising their old views on panned music.
It seems redundant for DMU to do this. I mean this is obviously meant to stab the NWN
crowd, not to give honest metal maniacs insight into the music of Conqueror. The “NWN CROWD” reference itself is bullshit, all these references FMP/NWN , Cargo-CUlt, War Metal. I have never seen any of these people in real life, the sworn followers to a very small corner in the metal world.
Maybe im just ranting but its getting really tiresome reading of this scenester sub-genre lifestyle identification B.S all the time. Hipster bullshit as a “hashtag”(fucking hate that word)attached to this article? Come on this isn’t about the metal anymore this is focusing on a few retarded folks that maybe listen to a little too much “War Metal”
Probably this perceived audience that’s being ripped on here are a mainly online presence rather than any regional or localized group that actually congregates, forms bands, plays shows, sets up festivals, or anything else relevant.
Checking out the NWN forums or just about any other decent-sized metal news site will reveal that this sort of “cargo cult” mentality is actually pretty widespread, at least online.
Years ago I knew them as internet metal nerds, but that label probably applies to me now…
We must destroy the fake before the excellent will return.
Remember our motto: “Sodomize the Weak.”
“Compassion is the vice of kings, stamp down the wretched and the weak!” – Crowley & Angelripper
SO Prozak writes for Rolling Stone
NEIN.
Bitter? Never… only more elitist. SU NIOJ
anyone else of the opinion that early Beherit (pre-DDtM) and Blasphemy are mostly shite anyway? Yeah, it sounds chaotic and evil but so what? There still needs to be songs for me to give a fuck.
Blasphemy and Beherit were okay but sucked compared to Sarcofago and Order From Chaos.
Naw for me Beherit will always reign supreme.
METAL OF DEATH
METAL OF DEATH
METAL OF DEATH
METAL OF DEEEEEEAAAAAATHH
NUCLEAR WAR, GODS OF WAR
NUCLEAR WAR, GODS OF WAR
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH
NUCLEAR WAR, GODS OF WAR
NUCLEAR WAR, GODS OF WAR
Infinitely supreme to War Cult Supremacy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D5r5K1T03I
You love being contrarian.
All 4 bands, when at their best, are nothing short of legendary. It’s ashame that Stillbirth Machine isn’t mentioned nearly as often as INRI, Fallen Angel of Doom or Drawing Down the Moon. It’s a perfect blend of black, death and thrash and the best effort by either Pete Helmkemp or Chuck Keller. It would’ve been interesting to see what direction war metal would have gone if more bands tried to take after OFC as opposed to Blasphemy.
Pre-Drawing Beherit is not that great but pretty much all of Blasphemy’s output is fucking awesome
Drawing Down The Moon and Engram exceed anything Blasphemy has done however, and I say that as a periodic listener of Fallen Angel of Doom. The grindcore-ish vein of black metal — Impaled Nazarene, Blood, Blasphemy, Belial — provides great primal listening on fullmoon nights.
Drawing Down The Moon is in top 10 black metal releases. Not so much Engram, though the album wasn’t terrible and did have it’s moments. Just not that great overall.
The first 3 Impaled Nazarene albums are great examples of chaotic sounding music especially Tol Corpt Norz Norz Norz. They were good at mdf too, been better if they played at night, but that’s not the band’s fault. Their anti-sjw comment in between songs was fucking classic.
Now that we’re on the subject of Finnish bands, what’s your opinion on Archgoat? I know some think they’re shit, but whore of Bethlehem sounded evil as fuck, at least to my ears. Obviously supreme compared to the likes of black witchery, conqueror or revenge.
Compare those to Ildjarn.
This is cargo cult cargo cult — not a wooden runway (Blashpemy) but someone shouting “I’m a wooden runway”.
Not cool.
You bastard!
Dude, I’m fucking flipping out right now because, BlackPhillip, I JUST watched ‘The Witch’ 1 hour ago. During it I thought to review it as ‘Death Metal made into a movie about New England’. So awesome!
I see your ruse, sir…
Hell yeah necro. Good shit.
Mechanisms of Omniscience by Abnormality
This had positively surprised me. As the track’s individually on youtube, it has to come with all the crap:
https://abnormality.bandcamp.com/track/hopeless-masses
“Conqueror cultivate an ill-fitting mood. War Cult Supremacy doesn’t sound chaotic, dangerous, or violent, which is what WAR is so it fails hard at being WAR metal.”
You realize they are trying to create MUSIC right? Obviously you cannot make actual music sound 100% warlike. That is utter nitpicking. You can merely get it close to sounding warlike. War metal is metal music that tries to APPROXIMATE the sound of war. It’s war MUSIC. Not war noise.
“War Cult Supremacy was obviously written by and for people whose sense of pattern recognition is so critically underdeveloped that melodic continuity is alien concept to them, as a typewriter is to a cow.”
If this metal made every song with 100% melodic continuity it wouldn’t be war metal anymore. It would be just be pleasing to the ear metal indistinguishable from death metal or black metal. You’re criticizing war metal for having distinction. Why should they be ashamed of themselves for having distinct rules in their compositions?
“This is coma ward metal. In terms of immediate tangible experience, does a woosh of static accented by powerchord-lite sound threatening to anyone? Does white noise sound dangerous? Does changing the pitch of that white noise do anything? No, no, no. Let’s be honest, those qualities are abstracted out of extra musical content.”
Some people notice the patterns in the riffs and some people just think it is all noise.
“Conqueror were just incompetent and couldn’t play anything more complex than randomly chromatic, bouncy punk riffs.”
Morbid sounding music is not supposed to be “complex” sounding. Cianide’s music for instance is VERY simple. Celtic Frost riffs are very simple. Even Bathory songs like Sadist are very simple. Now are you going to say all that music is crap because it’s not complex (hell they are even less complex than Conqueror songs)? I thought DMU was supposed to write articles from a purely objective standpoint? Not simply publish subjective interpretations.
And what you call “bouncy” riffs are really cadence riffs. Riffs where the drums are in perfect lockstep with the down strum of the guitar is not enough to make them “bouncy” riffs. Actual bouncy music is something more like slam death metal or pornogrind. Genres that sound nothing like war metal.
“What motivated Conqueror to attempt to join the black metal scene though and why were they accepted by the Full Moon and Nuclear War Now crowd?”
Probably as a response to bad black metal coming from Norway after the good days were over? Maybe because they thought black metal was too high pitched and too melodic and they wanted it to conform the more rhythmic tastes of Americans and Canadians? Maybe because they thought Ragnar Redbeard’s philosophy was better expressed in morbid, disheartening and angry soundscapes then in the epic romantic hymns of black metal and power metal? Who knows. Why do you care why they did it? Sometimes good music is made from bad intentions. It would be idiotic to dismiss good music because the intentions were base or absurd. By that mentality, I figure the folks of this site would have a knee jerk dismissive reaction to anything Terrorizer, Agothocles, or Napalm Death put out because they are kinda lefty.
“That the mainstream metal media bought their ruse shows that they couldn’t and still can’t recognize a wooden runway built by men in loincloths as different from an actual airport staffed with air traffic controllers when it comes to the genre”
Are you seriously going to argue that mainstream metal audiences like Conqueror? There is nothing mainstream about Full Moon and Nuclear War Now. We can easily argue they sign a lot of shitty bands, but signing a bunch of shitty bands doesn’t make them “mainstream”. That just makes them shitty labels dude.
Regarding the comment about melodic continuity…
You are probably thinking that “melodic” is synonymous with “consonant” or related to upbeat major-key playing, which is indeed a layman’s definition, but in this instance “melody” is used most literally; to describe a series of intervals that follow a conscious pattern. It’s the basis of music, as essential (or maybe even more so) than rhythm. Any time you play two or more notes temporally separated, you create melody. So thinking of the term in this sense, you can understand better what was meant; that the actual thought process that went into structuring the series of tones that establishes the melody of the songs is lacking in refinement and overall guidance. Hope that makes the criticism more transparent. Cheers.
Melody is more important than rhythm, but every time you have a melody, you automatically have rhythm. Every melody has a rhythm of its own.
But, every time you have a rhythm, you don’t necessarily have a melody, because you could be playing an unpitched instrument, like a drum.
So for that reason, melody is more important than rhythm in a way. But since rhythm is a part of every melody, not really.
Separating »melody« and »rhythm« in this way makes no sense: As soon as there’s a sequence of sounds, these being either distinguishable because there are intervals of no sound between them or because of stepped (instead of continuous) frequency changes, there’s necessarily also a rhythm. I still think that the duration of indivudal sounds should be regarded as part of that: A sequence of quarter notes has a different rhythm than the same sequence of sixteenth notes would have.
You can actually have melody without rhythm. It just doesn’t sound very good. Sort of similar to the “songs” of birds and whales.
I can’t speak for whales as I’ve never met one but there’s a lot of similarity between ‘singing’ nightingales and something like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJe_ZlFC084
[All The Things You Could Be Now If Sigmund Freud’s Wife Was Your Mother, Charles Mingus]
Whether or not free jazz classifies as »sounds good« is a matter of some controversy but it certainly has a rhythm (or rather rhythms).
I pointed that out. But they are not the same: Rhythm is always a part of a melody, but melody is not always part of a rhythm. An unpitched drum plays a rhythm only with no melody.
Furthermore, some music puts more emphasis on when the tones strike (rhythm), while other music puts more on which tones there are, rather than when they strike (melody), which makes it more melodic than rhytmic.
Even by that definition of melody the author presupposing that the riffs are random. They’re not. Sometimes Ryan’s riffs conform to the Locrian mode and some of them are just chromatic versions of the Locrian mode. The riffs do have internal rules.
If the music was completely atonal there would be no rules in it whatsoever. The music wouldn’t evoke any distinct feelings.
There is a hazy zone between melody and chaos, where music theory breaks down and musicians create things guided by their intuition. That’s where the best metal really shines. Check out Havohej, there is melodic continuity in that music even thought it doesn’t strictly follow mode, scale, or key. Conqueror fail not because the music is amusical; there is actually melody there, but it does not really trace any kind of narrative, it just grinds from here to there and then extinguishes itself like a suicide bomber that doesn’t know who he is fighting for.
Absurd intentions sometimes creates good music. I agree that they don’t actually know what they are fighting or who they are actually serving for but that’s an ideological criticism. Not a musical one.
That was not to be taken as ideological criticism, it was just a metaphor for the directionlessness in the songs. It’s like a developmentally disabled and extremely rambunctious child, or a seizure; lots of energetic thrashing but no direction to take it, no goal or point to express. That’s less a specific criticism of this particular guitarist’s compositional tendencies and more a condemnation of cargo cult metal at large, an umbrella under which all war metal sits. But hey if that frenzied non-linearity is what makes sense to you, then… okay.
war metal = tard metal
You could at least honor my attempt at diplomatic restraint, but… yes, that’s what I meant.
“it was just a metaphor for the directionlessness in the songs. It’s like a developmentally disabled and extremely rambunctious child, or a seizure; lots of energetic thrashing but no direction to take it, no goal or point to express.”
The rules governing the music are a bit more contrived and organized than anything a mere rambunctious child would make and a bit more threatening too. I disagree.
They do have a point to make and the point they are trying to make is that there is no point to anything. Life is nothing so death is nothing. Everything is permissible, ethics are slave regulations and all laws are arbitrary so there is no reason to have guilt for being a powerful being pursuing what you think is right (which the band calls the Superion).
That is the philosophy of nihilism; the philosophy of power. Might is Right.
If you have a problem with all that then you are criticizing them moralistically. Not musically.
Nihilism, in any of its forms, fatalistic or not, is not about might being right.
Might is not right, any more than right is might.
It’s about the lack of an objective right, leaving only whatever values are held by living beings.
If you compare this to
If the spiritual power of many people could be “collected” in one vessel, or transferred through one magic item or entity (in Norse we call it fylgja [“follower”, “guardian spirit”]), it could be used to create something real. This is purely magical thinking, and instead of being based on occultism it was based on fantasy magic – something that is kind of amusing to think about. Burzum was supposed to be the vessel, the magic weapon (or if You like; the magic ring), so to speak. I should stress (in case You think I had list my mind completely) that this was an experimental project that only took up some of my time, and I did other things in my life too (like prepare for partisan warfare in case of a US invasion of Norway… :-|).
http://www.burzum.org/eng/library/a_burzum_story01.shtml
why the result of one was music while the result of the other was lame, copycat noise because of want of any kind of internal coherency (and why should or could there be any internal coherency based on a ‘philosophy’ that everything is bovine manure of equal worthlessness — this surely applies to the music, too, and a powerful being would so something far more … powerful … then stomping on a wooden cross).
This is non-music supposed to provide the listener with the comforting reaffirmance that he doesn’t have to worry about all this ‘complicated’ (can’t eat it, can’t drink it, can’t fuck it, what’s the use?) stuff he neither understand nor wants to be bothered with.
I think that suicide bomber analogy was quite a good one. The singers speaks gibberish phrases like a cult leader probably because he doesn’t think the reasons behind war matter. Since he is a nihilist he doesn’t think there is such as thing as “good” or “bad” reasons for war. What matters is that war is eternal and that we are going to be involved in it whether we want to or not. The music is grinding and dissonant because the artists do not see any meaning or beauty any of this.
The person who saids that Conqueror should put more consonant melodic lines in their music is expecting the artists to go against their own perspectives. Anytime an artist writes consonant melodic lines they are either ascribing meaning or beauty to something. To criticize them for not ascribing meaning and beauty to things they don’t find meaning or beauty in is ideological criticism. Not musical criticism. If you read Redbeard’s book their musical decisions make sense from their perspective.
As for is the philosophy of Might is Right a logical extension of the meaninglessness of existence? The obvious (but wrong) answer is yes they have nothing to do with each other. If life is meaningless than accumulating power in life is also meaningless, but this would also mean that eating is meaningless, love is meaningless, hatred is meaningless, “justice” is meaningless, etc. Basically everything that is important to the human organism becomes meaningless. Is it logical to conclude all such things are meaningless from the standpoint of nihilism? Yes, but no living breathing being is capable of treating all such things as meaningless. All humans beings have to act in order to live and not only act but they have to act in a particular way. If one is going to exist one has to exist as SOMETHING. Which means one has to either have base desires or abstract ideas guide their behavior.
Thus there appears to be a contradiction between what nihilism logically suggests and what the phenomenological effect nihilism has on the individual. So how does nihilism effect the individual who is capable of understanding the totality of the logical implications of nihilism? It gets him to conclude that Might is Right.
If you value life.
If you value freedom.
If you think morality is completely relative and therefore useless in rational discussion.
If you think laws are nothing more than the will of the Conqueror (since morality is relative all laws have to be enforced with violence).
Then the only conclusion a nihilistic biological organism can come to is that Might is Right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6Zs_9DY370&list=PLmmPXA89ofsWkM9LCN262dcTiWxsUO41r
Might is right remains a contradictio in adiecto: Assuming that right is nothing, this would mean might is nothing. If right is supposed to be something, it cannot mean “whatever J Random Pocket Dictator desires to force his children and dogs to do”. That’s again anything and hence, nothing. Eg, Not only were men and horse almost wrecked during the emperor’s maneuvers but aditionally, HM frequently acted so ridicolously that he [person reporting this] considered resigning in frustration after they were over. The officers don’t learn anything anymore because whereever the emperor turns up, victory has to follow [Diary-entry of Frau v. Spitzemberg about a conversation with Oberjaegermeister v. Asseburg, ‘the emperor’ is Wilhelm II].
Further, might is right, when understood as “whatever someone with the power to act does is ok”, is exactly slave morality: »When I was a child, I was told God doesn’t want me to steal and since I feared God, I was afraid of stealing. But I’m grown up now, don’t believe in God any longer, hence, anything what suits me goes provided I don’t get caught.« — people who act on such a motto have to be treated like slaves, with some all-powerful overseer over them who enforces drastic punishments, because society would disintegrate were they allowed to follow their ‘homo homini lupus est’ instinct. Considering that we’re decidedly past the state of the war of everyone against everyone else, people who behave differently must exist and since we have been past this state for quite some time, the slave mentality is really an atavism. That’s what Nietzsche calls ‘decadent’: People who have, through centuries of enforced order, degenerated back to a more animalic mindset, rendering them incapable of building the civilisation maintaining them, and who jump to the reasoning you’ve reproduced once they’re convined that their fear of an all-seeing, all-powerful being handing out punishments after life was baseless.
“The idea with Burzum was not only to make original and personal music, but also to create something new – a “darkness” in a far too “light”, safe and boring world. Unlike 99% of all musicians I didn’t play music to become famous, earn money and get laid. I had no interest in neither fame nor money, and I had a very naïve and romantic view on women, an almost medieval (or rather fantsy world) view on women, so I had nothing but contempt for the brain-dead “sex, drugs and rock’n’roll” attitude of the other metal people. Instead my motivation was a wish to experiment with magic, and try to create an alternative reality by the use of “magic”. If the spiritual power of many people could be “collected” in one vessel, or transferred through one magic item or entity (in Norse we call it fylgja [“follower”, “guardian spirit”]), it could be used to create something real. This is purely magical thinking, and instead of being based on occultism it was based on fantasy magic – something that is kind of amusing to think about. Burzum was supposed to be the vessel, the magic weapon (or if You like; the magic ring), so to speak. I should stress (in case You think I had list my mind completely) that this was an experimental project that only took up some of my time, and I did other things in my life too (like prepare for partisan warfare in case of a US invasion of Norway.” -Varg Vikernes
So my answer to you Rain why Conqueror and Burzum go two different paths? One believes in magic and the other does not. One thinks music is supposed to magically change reality and the other thinks music simply ought to reflect reality.
One is inspired by fiction and one is inspired by the truth.
So why have I been such a defensive fanboy of Conqueror? Because although I don’t agree with their philosophy anymore I do recognize the logic inherent in the music and the artists reverence for the truth. Something I cannot merely dismiss as trying to be edgier than everyone else.
The crucial aspect of the Vikernes quote is not so much its content (even the originator doesn’t take this seriously anymore[*]) but the underlying conviction that music can be of tangible value to others and that he himself is capable of achieving this and is hence willing to try. But there’s no place for immaterial, that is, idealistic(!) values in a materialistic worldview: If some individual voluntarily wastes his time with listening to weird sounds following some elaborate (or not so elaborate) pattern, that’s obviously a deficiency of his mind or maybe the of (unenlightened) human mind in general. Consequently, this philosophy is either a window dressing for the gullible or these guys were creating something they themselves considered worthless. And this shows in the ‘random’ composition, eg, the ‘crust punk’ concept that the job of the drummer is to give the drums a good pounding.
Something much nicer (arrived today and just running for the 2nd time):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eONQWH61SaM
Alright then, you’ve cornered me.
Conquerer’s music *and* their morals/message are retarded.
Is it any coincidence that Revenge tours with Watain and finds resonance with the actual hipsters at Watain shows? If you think I am exaggerating I invite you to actually see watain when they are in your area. It’s quite the scene.
please no
Regarding motivation: it’s hard to shit out a classic when you’re just trying to be edgier that your buddies.
Precisely every good black metal release came from kids trying to out-edge the other.
And a lot of good death metal, too, at least in Sweden.
They were trying to be more brutal, faster, darker, scarier, more evil, and so on.
But we have for long ago reached the point at which that’s no longer a good approach. We’re saturated in that area. We’re already “extreme” enough. Now, something more sustainable is needed.
Besides, I don’t believe that they did it for its own sake. They were attracted to it, and genuinely wanted to express those things, not just to shock people like a silly contrarian.
I meant that it shouldn’t be the main motivating factor or you end up with crap.
Men don’t compete by trying to be better than each other. The idea is usually to make sure that nobody else who could have a chance of winning starts.
“Conqueror occasionally use samples to differentiate War Cult Supremacy‘s compositions in the style of a cheesy hardcore punk album. Unlike a beatdown band, these samples are wimpy: Conqueror copy-pasted Wojciech Kilar’s score from the Gary Oldman Dracula with Winona Ryder where Dracula cries like thirteen year old girl to add some bullshit romance sub-plot for goth appeal. Choosing samples from Francis Ford Coppola’s emasculated adaptation of Dracula instead of Christopher Lee identified Conqueror as Hot Topic “black metal”, a more hardcore-rooted Cradle of Filth. Moreover, this bitch-made move clarified their targeted audience: mall punks, noise rockers, and idiots who would buy the album solely for its superficial shitty production aesthetics.”
Um no. Some of us actually chose to buy it because at some point in our lives we felt an affinity for the abstract ideas and the power lust the artists had. Are you seriously going to criticize a band from where they got their audio samples from? Seriously? Like that is some proof they are a bunch of emo’s or something? How the fuck are you supposed to know from a title “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” that it is supposed to feature and emasculated Draculu? Seriously dude. This is like the most trivial and illogical thing you could possibly bring up.
Show me proof that Conqueror War Cult Supremacy was ever sold in a Hot Topic story and you will have a point. Otherwise, you’re just trolling.
I don’t care what anyone says Bram Stoker’s Dracula was fucking awesome. Again the diss of the movie refers to gay nerds who fell in love with it for the sake of pretending to be some anthropomorphic beast.
Coppola’s Dracula looks fantastic but it’s a mess that goes downhill right after the title sequence.
100% disagree
Do autists have a sense of humor or taste for the hyperbolic? I am asking because you seem to have an acute sense for the spectrum.
Do spectrums have a sense for carnage?
Do taste for the humor or have a sense for hyperbolic autists?
That wasn’t a meaningless combination of words: The nom de plume used here is a “Did I tell you how important my COCK is!” misrendering of two announcements on »Live in Leipzig«, “Come on, Leipzig” (appears on its own once and once in front of something else before »:Pure Fucking Armageddon«) and “Are you dead?” which is between »Freezing Moon« and »Carnage«. I thought that was quite a neat joke when I heard it for the first time.
This suggests that the important generative organ lacks both a sense of humour and the abilitiy to keep different things apart, something that’s roughly in line with the Wikipedia definition of spectrum.
I was asking myself why I come here.
We all need to calm the fuck down and let Brett Stevens fuck our asses !
Seriously. We all need that.
In fact, we all dream about it.
Brett. Please fuck all of our asses.
Like, immediately. And also Brett, what are your thoughts on Broken Hope’s two first albums? Are they worth buying?
Brett Stevens where the oldest, must like Dream Theater?
I didn’t know this so far and while I have read enough of these texts to spot the recurring phrases, they are – be it for once – rather apt (describing something as featureless as this is difficult). I’ve listened to 1.5 of these tracks as I really can’t stand that any longer. I like the guitar but the »really angry cocker spaniel« and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8aGlOj2VFo and – at least for the first track – the ‘lead guitar overdubs’ work very hard to mark this as what it is, namely “This shit is really simple. We can do that, too” but – sorry guys – you can’t. This is badly wanting in “knowledge of when to stop” (The Adventure of the Norwood Builder).
BTW, the muppet backing track is a part of Hobbit (Ric Lee).
Ha, nice, reminded me of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvKBtO5XBm8
Someone gave me a CD-r of war cult supremacy 10 years ago and I’ve played it maybe 5 times. Perhaps, I should give it another spin, but I always considered conqueror and black witchery to be poor examples of war metal. I understand wanting to sound barbaric and chaotic, but not to the point where it’s dull. It’s not hipster bullshit, but it’s dudes who tried too hard to sound like Blasphemy and utterly failed. I can see where Brett and Daniel like to label it as noise. I liked Revenge better, but have to be in a certain mood to listen to them. I liked Aussie bands like Bestial Warlust, Martire and Sadistik Exekution much better. Archgoat’s Angelcunt EP and whore of Bethlehem is also supreme.
Sadistik Exekution are cool even if I don’t listen to them too often anymore. However I cannot wrap my head around how anyone cam listen to Revenge and keep a straight face. The guitar playing is totally ridiculous and extremely lazy, the drumming is kind of cool but grates after a short time, and the vocals are so indistinguishable it’s like the band doesn’t want you to know what’s being said because the lyrics are so vague and dumb.
Sadistik Exekution are cool even if I don’t listen to them too often anymore.
Not that long ago, NWN released a “30 years od Sadistik Exekution retrospective” and someone did an interview with the bass player (NB: I don’t know the band myself), with his most ‘summed up’ statement being
How about 50 years of getting fukked! Dead as fukk, mate! There is no legacy. Sad-Exe can get fukked! I hate that shit and I wish people would get over it. […] Anyhow, I’m over this shit. Sad-Exe fukking krap… We are fukking shit. We all met in the mental hospital… Do not buy this rubbish!”.
IOW, this was essentially a “making fun of the … who buy this” project.
Lol. He was singing a different tune back when they were trying to make money off of their music. I guess we all get old, disillusioned, and grouchy, though.
Don’t take those comments too seriously. I read one slayer mag interview where Rok was talking about wanting to have gay sex with Varg. So they’re either being silly or mental haha. I do think they’re actually mental. The Magus is still an awesome album, regardless.
Conquerer was shown to me by a junkie hipster some years back and that was my first exposure to war metal. I noticed this guy who played bass would have his distortion time so that it mattered not what note you played it would produce the same static farts. A lot of bands are doing generic war metal side projects now which seem to guarantee more attention from labels and promoters in the underground and the more hardline followers of the cargo cult regard any musicality in metal for fools and the false. It is the most irritating and faggiest trend since bro core, it’s a real disease in metal and should be fucking mocked and destroyed. I like the South American black thrash like Sarcofago and the Aussie Sadistik Exekution and Bestial Warlust, and even the German sausage grinding of Blood, but from Conquerer to now the war metal trend is just faceless Obscene Extreme grindcore with a black metal paint job. WAR.METAL.TREND.
A consonant chord! DISGUSTING.
Music for posers and wimps!
The Conqueror guitar player actually produces some pretty ‘standard’ black metal harmonies, that’s just difficult to notice because the movement is extremely slow and because of all the “Look here instead!” attention grabbing crap added on top of that.
Do you like your mainstream Iron Maiden pop metal?
Maiden’s pop > war metal.
I don’t exactly know what you mean exactly by ‘consonant chord’ but if Iron Maiden is a good example of this, I simply don’t like the way this sounds: At best, I consider Maiden mildly offensive because they’re so dumbed down conventional in their melodies and harmonies. Watching (or rather trying to watch) early-1980s Diamond Head videos makes me want to go into “Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!”-mode. I’m also in the process of getting something which probably either classifies as ‘War Metal’ or at least ‘Fucking a corpse’ (Satanize, Apocalyptic Impious Command) because I found it somewhere and thought it sounded interesting enough that I wanted to have a closer look at it.
But this certainly not related to me secretly longing for Dickinson-style pseudo-operetta stuff but – alas – my image forbids me from …. (I don’t socialize with people as that has proven to be as hopeless as unrewarding), this ‘consonant stuff’ just rubs me the wrong way while pretty much everything else doesn’t.
I consider Iron Maiden to have offensive traits behind which music of some value lurks.
Once one gets over the conventional cheese, it’s worthwhile music.
ha ha of course buttblasted NWN war metal fuckers give this 80 comments. “It’s really deep because it only uses the first four threats.” I gave this album about sixth months worth of chances years ago and the only good part is the intro mid-paced riff. If you can even call 0-0-1-0 a riff. Hellhammer looks like fucking Yes compared to this nonsense.
War metal of this caliber has more to do with punk than metal. “No man, the minimalism is like a statement on society or something maaaaan.” Ildjarn and Sacramentary Abolishment wipe the floor with this crap.
Luckily war metal is on the way out in favor of retrodeath bands trying to be progressive rock by adding wacky noises. Remember all of those “black metal with a flute” bands that the DLA shat all over? We’re in a new phase of that. Get with the times, old man!
Frets not threats fuuuuck
Yes like Blood Incantation! Techdeaf + jazz.
Ehh… I actually that that new Blood Incantation was pretty cool except during the “ambient” parts. I was more referring to the Horrendous/Tribulation/Morbus Chron school (and I loved Horrendous before the change!).
Two other trends that have supplanted war metal:
That shoegazy black metal shit. We thought it went away with the death of Wolves in the Throne Room but now Ghost Bath and Deafheaven have introduced a legion of impressionables to the wonders of playing screamo chord progressions with tremolo-picking and calling it black metal.
Bands trying to be Hellenic black metal. Probably the least objectionable of these considering Sacriphyx is pretty cool. I’m still on the fence for Necromantic Worship and Hierophant’s Descent though. I need more than direct clones of Necromantia and Varathron respectively. It seems like a lot of the NWN kiddies have been getting into the Greek stuff as a way to like melodeath while still being seen as cool.
Other trends that are thankfully dead for the most part: Entombed clones, Incantation clones, that weird arty black metal pseudo-Ildjarn shit of Bone Awl and Liturgy ilk, one man bedroom DSBM (which took waaaaay to fucking long to die), Norsecore
I like where you’re going with that analysis, Anthony. (Though, I thought Tribulation ‘Children of the Night’ or whatever was more like a fake stoner rock band with death growls. Like a bad In Solitude with death growls.)
I’m getting a vibe recently of all this shit converging upon ‘Domination’-era Morbid Angel, with ‘cosmic’ themes (i.e. outer-space is cold, dark, imposing). Blood Incantation, Mithras, nothing else specifically springs to mind right now. But it’s my FEELING, okay?! lawl
The only thing resembling jazz in a ‘technical’ death metal (as per self accusation) setting I’ve encounted so far is Revocation and even that is faint: It’s possible to recognize that Dave Davies also plays jazz because of the ‘colouring’ of his solos. Most of the people who do play this kind of stuff stand firmly on European musical traditions.
Should have been Dave Davidson. Nobody ever accused Dave Davies (The Kinks) of playing anything resembling jazz :->.
NO FLUTE METAL!
sadistic chuckle
There’s some quality NWN war metal, Blasphemophagher being one of the best of modern day war metal. Bestial Raids and Embrace Of Thorns also being quality. These bands have proven to be at least a bit more than a simple Blasphemy clone and a wall of noise. There is also gay hipster shit on the label, like the band, Villains. Sure, when countless number of bands try to imitate a musical style, there’s gonna be a lot mediocre and shit bands, but there will always be the few on top that execute the style at it’s finest.
NWN releases a ton of everything. There’s a lot of Greek-style black metal on the label and then some crazy shit like Martire. Publish or Perish.
I’m very aware of the Greek styled bands on the NWN roster, I personally know the dudes in Gnosis, I remember when they had a band called Devastator, even in those days they had an infatuation with Greek black metal. I must say they are very mediocre and don’t come close to approaching the quality of Necromantia or Varathron.
And yes, Martire is fucking killer. I have the NWN reissue of their self-titled EP. I need to give a spin again.
Arty hipster death metal is pretty fucking terrible, I’ll take dive bar death metal like Torture Rack over that any day.
Im pleased this article generated so much commentary and conversation, even with the disagreements.
I will spend every penny on Cds Conqueror, Revenge and Iron Maiden (and no mortal, what will prevent).
Why would anyone want to try?
The Blood Incantation combination of somewhat Incantation-styled death metal with seriously awful gutter progging is also quite jarring, you might want to consider that as well.
More metal than Conqueror:
This is bad for Conqueror, if what you say is true.
They are in that case less metal than rock.
You will be made to eat the shit mystifier”s guitarist expunges from betwixt his meaty flesh sacks,comprised of the remains of cannibalized brazillian nazis
I did not know the Mystifier guy’s anus was located between his testicles. Will his melanic genitalia be preserved for the Mütter’s collection of medical oddities?