Grammy-award wining artist Watain has shamelessly assumed the mantle of “most embarrassing band masquerading as black metal” previously shared by Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth. Where the downfall of those two bands was an overdose of gothic and groove influences, Watain has managed to outdo both in both parody and bastardization of black metal with their previous album’s venture into country musical territory. With a career built on celebrity guest spots from more capable underground metal musicians, necrophiliac 1st era Bathory Worship mixed with a second rate attempt to mimic Dissection’s concluding album, and a ridiculously cartoonist theatrical performance worthy of a Broadway musical, Watain’s legacy has been secured to forever be “the band that bent over farthest to inherit the phallus of commercialization the deepest” and has effectively decimated any hope of legitimacy the sub genre might have had in the post-90s. With a brash new attestation in the form of Trident Wolf Apocalypse the truth could not possibly be more clear to any listener with knowledge of black and death metal: Watain are the biggest joke in all of black metal history.
The first thing immediately clear to a first listen of Trident Wolf Eclipse (aside from the laughable use of the “random 3 word album title” popularized by Dimmu Borgir and Revenge) is just how badly Watain has been scarred after suffering the universally vitriolic backlash they received for recording their 2013 album The Wild Hunt. An nearly unfathomable level of desperation to appear true and authentic is found in every riff and arrangement on this album which results in Watain reducing themselves to the Toxic Holocaust formula of creating a hodge-podge of parts found on other underground albums. Do the riffs from the first song on this album sound familiar? Yes, that’s because you’ve heard them on Angelcorpse’s 1998 album Exterminate! Wow, that second song has such a classic feel, it’s as if it’s taken right from the title track of Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas…. wait a minute, it’s the same song! Every riff, every song, is either from another black metal band (usually Mayhem) or from another Watain album. The record label likely pressed the band so hard to put together a “retro” sounding album (in continuity with the current trend of bands of this caliber) that they’ve reduced themselves to either ripping off another band or ripping off themselves! I’m not exaggerating in the slightest- this album does not have one single moment of a unique identity.
What’s truly nauseating about this formula is that most newcomers to the genre (a.k.a. Watain’s entire fan base) might not be able to pick apart this cocktail of black metal plagiarism. An A.D.D. generation of changing songs or albums rapidly with no real time spent drinking in any of them might be so conditioned to swapping music in and out that this will feel natural to them. However, anyone with the ability to appreciate the depth and creativity of the black/death metal works from the 90’s and/or anyone even remotely schooled in music appreciation (even at the most basic level) will quickly understand that none of these compositions are in any way practical. The riffs and movements are as cut-and-paste as the words in the album’s title: complete with no thematic continuity, logic, or reason. It’s literally just a completely randomized blender of lifeless riffs, pathetic blasts, and soulless melodies meshed together in a swarthy mass of aural defecation. I truly and honestly wonder if Watain have an audio software program with a slicer algorithm and just booted up a bunch of other Watain, Mayhem, and Revenge songs with the measures earmarked for the program to randomly generate a composition of their parts because then and only then would their be any sense to this pile of garbage.
There is a certain poetic justice to Trident Wolf Apocalypse as it personifies 2010s extreme metal and its hipster fan base in a way no other record has. This decade has produced a neutered dickless class of metal musicians and fans who more than any preceding generation have elevated aesthetics, rehashing of retro sounds and ideas, ideology, and status over musical quality. Releases like this exist solely for trashy hipsters to out-muscle other hipster inde-metal fans in “haha, I’m fucking underground and you’ve never heard this” entry type audiences only to later be discarded by another “really underground looking/sounding” piece of music. Watain (or the Century Media executives- whoever is making the creative decisions on this one) must have been aware of this to put together something as obvious and shameless a cash grab as what this album is. Unfortunately, what comes from this is a delegitimization of the overall black metal genre to such an extent that it becomes embarrassing to be a fan of any of it whatsoever.
As a wannabe black metal band formed in the 2000’s, Watain always had a lot to prove given that they were not a part of the original movement but still wanted to appear as dangerous, dark, and true to the spirit. Unfortunately, this led to a career of music void of quality and a career of musicianship castrated beyond comprehension. Watain is truly the band to do the most damage to the genre as with each album they delegitimize black metal to greater and greater depths of humiliation. And while it’s unclear if Watain actually believe their gimmick of theistic satanism as much as they present themselves to, they have- through both this album and their entire career- infinitely portrayed their dark lord’s inferiority to the God of Abraham.
Tags: 2010s, 2018, bad music, Black Metal, Broadway Musicals, carnival, cash grab, clowns, crap, defecation, feces, hipsters, mayhem, metal, poop, posers, revenge, shit, Trident Wolf Eclipse, watain
Watain is to Mayhem what Papa Roach was to Iron Maiden. Repackaged riffs for the ADHD kiddies.
But seriously, the inoffensive “drawn by middle school children” cover artwork gives it away, like myriad other post 2000 “metal” albums. (Either that, or it’s some CGI horror show). I don’t accept that things shouldn’t be judged by the cover; the cover reveals a lot about the artistic direction of the artist (even the label) as a whole. Of course there are some exceptions, like ‘Ritual of Infinity’ (I guess the intended cover art was lost in a fire or something). Important metal albums have iconic album covers. Similar can be said for band logos -> too simple? = trying to pander to the masses. Too complex? = Overcompensating for lack of quality. Changing from complex to simple logo mid-career? = telltale sign of selling out. Usually these things give away what the album is going to sound like before you have even flipped it over to look at the track titles/lengths. Saved me a lot of time and money.
I think you’re wrong about the whole “drawn by a middle schooler” album covers. Those raw ink demos of classic death metal bands drawn by filthy metal youth look fucking great and hold true quality inside. I’d say this art is more playing it safe “I want a career making metal art” hipsters
Trident Wolfshirt Elipse
I’m not reading 5 paragraphs about watain.
ADHD is a ruse created by shill psychologists and pharmaceutical companies to rip off families. However, short attention spans definitely exist, and are rewarded by social media Fagbook clicking, and remote control flipping of nonsensical rubbish from Watain on youtube and spotify to garbage TV, and news conjuring up false (It’s been fake news a long time before dotard Trump made comments) reports to garner clicks to sell ads to neo-feudal debt slaves. Regarding the Watain album cover, it’s crayon drawn mainstream tripe so little Johnny can show it to his PC parents. The same is true of the blatant pop rock Dissection rip off of the music. But don’t worry this year is sure to get much better:
http://www.metalinjection.net/lists/35-most-anticipated-albums-of-2018
Erik and the rest of this band are a bunch of faggots! They’d get humped to death by shemales!
Just don’t tell someone what you’re listening to is Black Metal.
Superficial shrimpcock tripe like Watain, Katharsis and Destroyer 666 are to be expected. It’s not hard to appear to be black metal, it’s not hard to posit yourself into hermetic ideologies in your interviews and it’s not hard to appeal to amateur nihilists with ideologies that appear obscure to the uneducated. Even some classic bands knew this, yet they actually created great art and quickly refined their sensibilities. These bands should fuel the true original voices to speak up and respond artistically in underground avenues.
U R all bloodless cliche. Fuck U Get Dead
Your mother ya freak!
Watain is trannycore. Black metal Whitney Houston.
Blowtain sucks lmao
Their first two albums were a decent take on the Dissection style, what came afterwards is more the brainchild of a marketing director than an actual bunch of musicians.
Century Media = mediocre releases, “nordicist” releases only have surface level viking themes, west coast USA (remember Berkeley?) – just like Roadrunner Records (don’t forget about numetal), signs Napalm Death who promote Berney Sanders by proxy (but only as a political symbol – socialism), Dark Funeral take precedent as “grown men wearing makeup” black metal which was successful enough – stock holders no longer hedging their bets on a Ancient or Cradle of Filth
Watain = Dissection ripoff losing popularity, adopt popular symbols from internet metal subculture in regards to black metal (“Euronymous was my hero!”), craft a discordant loud metal, pseudo androgynous promotional materials
Century Media + Watain = Erik is now a full tranny used by the parent companies of Century Media to promote a “gay agenda” through the medium of Watain lyrics and lower key tranny ceremonial magic (Kabbalistic mysticism in music videos = RuPaul’s drag race) to fund a global AI system that wants to rip you off and turn you gay. This explains the funcore Asphyx albums for the Dark Descent crowd and the occult albums covered in spandex and glitter (don’t forget Skinlab); genres seemingly at odds (audience and music) pushed by the same company to create a dialectical maze which proposes a solution that ends with castration and trans-serfdom for all.
The Hollywood Religion = Sworn to the Dark is a tool used to suppress thinking and to swear your life to banking and whoredom “because it’s cool” now in a black metal sense by adopting symbols used by other bands or institutions for this end goal (Fuck Your Jewish God = hope my mouth lands on Weinstein’s cock)