If I remember correctly from watching Cosmos nearly 20 years
\nago, one of the theories about the “Big Bang” is that the universe
\nwill eventually collapse in upon itself. Sometimes, I feel like the
\nwhole death metal scene is ready to have that happen.<\/p>\n
Now, mind you, I happen to like death metal, moreso for the
\nspeed, power and intensity of the music than some of the messages
\nencoded into the songs. But there are so few bands willing to take
\na chance with the genre; they all seem content to just banging away
\non their instruments as fast as they can and singing songs of
\npraise to the devil.<\/p>\n
Take the Swedish band Serpent Obscene and their self-titled
\nalbum. Would someone go up to these guys, slap them upside the head
\nand tell them that it’s possible to write a song in more than the
\nfrickin’ key of “E”? Writing songs in the same music key gets
\nrepetitious. Writing songs in the same music key gets repetitious.
\nWriting songs in the same music key… whoops, sorry, got locked
\ninto the same mindframe the band obviously used.<\/p>\n
I’ll give the band – vocalist Erik Tormentor, guitarists Nicklas
\nEriksson and Johan Th\u00f6rngren, bassist Rob Rocker and drummer
\nJonas Eriksson – some credit in that they do work in some
\ncomplicated chord changes in the melodies. But to write every song
\nbased around the key of “E” – well, frankly, it gets so tiring that
\nthe listener almost becomes numb to the music that’s attacking
\ntheir ears. I mean, give me something to differentiate one track
\nfrom another, for Jah’s sake!<\/p>\n
Clocking in at just under 29 minutes, Serpent Obscene blast
\nthrough nine tracks which, as a whole, aren’t terrible. But the
\nband seems perfectly content sticking with the same game plan that
\nso many other death metal bands have used over and over again that
\nsome of the power of the better tracks, such as “Pestilent Seed
\n(The Plague),” “Evil Rites” and “Serpent Prophecy” are lost in the
\nhaze.<\/p>\n
Granted, the “torture” sequence that completes “Act Of
\nAggression” does inject some originality to the mix – but it almost
\nfeels like too little, too late as the disc fades off into
\ncompletion. And Serpent Obscene seems like a band who are still
\ndiscovering just who they are, which might explain sticking with
\nsome of the cookie-cutter death metal. (Admittedly, the satanic
\nreferences are kept to a minimum – so I guess there’s something
\ndifferent the band is doing.)<\/p>\n
Of course, true devotees to the death metal scene will probably
\nfind much more in
\nSerpent Obscene<\/i> to cheer about, and more power to them in
\nthat regard. But it would be nice to hear this band try and take
\nsome kind of a musical chance the next time around. It’s not a bad
\ndisc, but Serpent Obscene hardly sets themselves apart from the
\nrest of the crowd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6632],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-37154","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-serpent-obscene","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37154"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37154"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}