It seems kind of funny to me, but even in my “headbanger” period
\nin high school, I never really got into the whole death metal
\nscene. Only when I discovered grindcore while in college did I find
\nany excitement in this genre, and even that tended to wear off very
\nquickly. Now that I’ve got this gig, I honestly think I’ve listened
\nto more death metal than I did throughout high school and college
\ncombined.<\/p>\n
The latest of these platters to cross my way,
\nIX Equilibrium<\/i> from Emperor, is an interesting change in
\nthat I swear I’m hearing keyboards (though I don’t see any credit
\nfor these on the promotional CD jacket). The richer sound of the
\nband helps to separate it from the rest of the gloom-and-doom
\nrockers of the genre, but in the end, it almost seems like too much
\nto take in one sitting.<\/p>\n
The band – vocalist\/bassist Ihsahn, guitarist Samoth and drummer
\nTrym – are obviously skilled at their craft, and I won’t deny that
\ntheir musicianship is incredible. Especially impressive to me is
\nthe drum work of Trym, who pounds out beats faster and for a longer
\nperiod of time than I thought was humanly possible.<\/p>\n
And while Ihsahn breaks the traditional stereotype of the death
\nmetal vocalist (I don’t think I heard a single grunt or growl on
\nthis whole disc), it often is very difficult to understand just
\nwhat he is saying. Then again, with song titles like “Curse You All
\nMen” and “The Warriors Of Modern Death,” I don’t think I really
\nwant to know.<\/p>\n
The intensity level of
\nIX Equilibrium<\/i> is set on “overkill” throughout the disc,
\nbarely giving the listener time to breathe, much less let their
\nneck stop snapping back and forth. Tracks like “Curse You All Men”
\nand “Decrystallizing Reason” are pleasant enough (at least pleasant
\nfor those who like the death metal genre – I doubt any John Denver
\nfans would be picking this one up for kicks), but I found it
\nincredibly difficult to get through more than three songs without
\nneeding a break. I don’t know if this is because I’ve never really
\nfollowed the genre that closely or if
\nIX Equilibrium<\/i> is just too intense for its own good.<\/p>\n
One thing I found intriguing was the intro to “The Warriors Of
\nModern Death,” which used a tolling bell that sounded incredibly
\nsimilar to the one used on Metallica’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”.
\nNot that this song has much in common with the Metallica track
\nexcept for that – but don’t be surprised if you find yourself
\nsaying, “I’ve heard that before somewhere” after hearing some of
\nthe riffs that Samoth plays in his solo.<\/p>\n
\nIX Equilibrium<\/i> is an intense album that might be too much to
\ntake for even the devout death metaller. It’s still very much worth
\nchecking out, but it might not be a bad idea to pace yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6636],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-39084","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-emperor","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39084","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=39084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39084"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}