Satyricon - Deep Calleth upon Deep

Of the many traits associated for better or for worse with black metal, lifeless is hardly ever one of them. Even the most uninventive, boring, and cliché-entrapped bands generally perform with some of metal’s most convincing passion and energy. Yet the path of one of modern black metal’s most shining lights, Satyricon, has been along stale, unenthusiastic roads for the past couple of albums now as they’ve sought to awkwardly bridge the gap between standard Norwegian black metal and early 80′s heavy metal a la Judas Priest. While I can’t think of any other band attempting this kind of feat and can give Satyricon at least a little bit of props for being original, perhaps their output as of late serves as a sign of why not too many other bands involved with black metal are trying it. The band’s fans have long lamented their integration of non-black influences into their releases and I have felt like albums like Volcano and even The Age of Nero have been testament to their enhancement of the muscularity of their black metal through this departure, but with a homogeneous mid-tempo wash of low-ceiling black metal Deep Calleth upon Deep does the band as few favors as their previous self-titled album did in convincing their still-upset fan base of the merits of their venture into these territories.
The motivation behind the stylistic pursuit can be inferred through the music as Satyricon try to give a black metal flavored jolt to the tasty riffing of bands like Iron Maiden, but the result is the opposite. Plugging in, instead, restricted, breathless, skeletal black metal into the old-school heavy metal formula has churned out for Satyricon a vague mess of unexciting attempts at memorable vintage-style riffs spaced out between meandering black metal that sounds so another-day-at-the-office, it seems like it doesn’t even want to be there either. The title track, the album’s only possible highlight for me, comes the closest to making this stylistic chemistry organic, but the rest of the album is a flatland of paralyzed black metal and contrived 80′s guitar licks, with “Dissonant” bearing possibly one of the most annoying riffs I’ve heard all year. Getting to this one so late has been the result of giving this album plenty of time to marinate with me and repeated tries to enjoy it, but each time I can’t even seem to want to continue with it.

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