- Jul 27, 2006
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I felt like bringing up this topic because the band's new album ("Metamorphosis of Realistic Theories") is scheduled for release early next month (suprisingly, I just about haven't seen any talk about the upcoming release on here, the metal-archives.com forums, etc.). Anyway...
There's two basic opinionated divisions of people regarding this album (similar to the "love it or hate it" dichotomy regarding albums such as "Transylvanian Hunger"): those who praise the album and have often referred to it as the "greatest black metal album ever and a modern innovation that will push the genre forward" (no, I am saying that everyone who prasies it feels exactly that way, but it seemed especially evident during the album's debut in 2003), and of course, those who dismiss the album as "overrated and pretentious psuedo-intellectual garbage". Once the hype died down, I noticed more and more people fall among the secondary group.
I mostly have a "middle-ground" opinion on the album. I can understand why certain people dislike it (I found most of the ambient interludes on the album to be pointless, and what the hell was dedicating 18 seconds of silence to one track for? it amounted to nothing... in addition, the vocals get irrirating on some tracks). I also agreed and identified with those who thought the album's atmosphere was truly alienated and horrific... the album's overall sound is still something I consider truly unique. And yea, I can say that the abum has some very solid tracks for what they are ('The Fall', 'Our Blessed Frozen Cells', 'Procession...'). But I consider the album far from perfect, and I don't think it is absolutely innovative; it is just unique (some consider the album too much deriative of Thorns/Godflesh/etc.)... plus I think that in the grand scope of metal, it doesn't measure up in quality and spirit to older BM classics such as "Hvis Lyset.../Filosofem", "Pure Holocaust", etc. I can just consider it a flawed but above-decent post-2000 BM recording nowadays.
There's two basic opinionated divisions of people regarding this album (similar to the "love it or hate it" dichotomy regarding albums such as "Transylvanian Hunger"): those who praise the album and have often referred to it as the "greatest black metal album ever and a modern innovation that will push the genre forward" (no, I am saying that everyone who prasies it feels exactly that way, but it seemed especially evident during the album's debut in 2003), and of course, those who dismiss the album as "overrated and pretentious psuedo-intellectual garbage". Once the hype died down, I noticed more and more people fall among the secondary group.
I mostly have a "middle-ground" opinion on the album. I can understand why certain people dislike it (I found most of the ambient interludes on the album to be pointless, and what the hell was dedicating 18 seconds of silence to one track for? it amounted to nothing... in addition, the vocals get irrirating on some tracks). I also agreed and identified with those who thought the album's atmosphere was truly alienated and horrific... the album's overall sound is still something I consider truly unique. And yea, I can say that the abum has some very solid tracks for what they are ('The Fall', 'Our Blessed Frozen Cells', 'Procession...'). But I consider the album far from perfect, and I don't think it is absolutely innovative; it is just unique (some consider the album too much deriative of Thorns/Godflesh/etc.)... plus I think that in the grand scope of metal, it doesn't measure up in quality and spirit to older BM classics such as "Hvis Lyset.../Filosofem", "Pure Holocaust", etc. I can just consider it a flawed but above-decent post-2000 BM recording nowadays.