Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Manierisme - Everyone Has Two Sides


This one-man black metal project from Japan named itself after a period of rebellious and intellectual European art, but frankly this is about as intellectual as checking your petrol tank with a cigarette lighter, and if this is a rebellion I imagine it would be crushed quickly and silently by higher forces (not that it would inspire any rebels in the first place). This is raw black metal of the very obscure sort. Note how obscure is a neutral word with no positive or negative connotations and allow me to add plenty of negative ones. It’s basically the most tedious piece of brainmelting monotony I’ve heard in a long time. Classical influences are clear here, but the riffs remind me personally of symphonic music from a ‘30s or ‘40s melodrama (a very cheesy one) forced through a black metal filter far too quickly; not exactly a grim formula. I’m all up for genre fusion and experimentation, and even ungrimness, but it needs to be interesting. This is just so boring! Whining melodies which sound almost all exactly the same plod on through cacophonic production, oblivious to the listener’s excruciating boredom. Jekyll does some blurted out burps into the microphone for vocals. And that’s the way it rolls from start to end. But OH WAIT, I forgot! Everyone Has Two Sides gets some variation at one point when it decides to break out a cover of the James Bond melody. Seriously? That’s the break you give me to your incessant monotone record? What a joke. I’m giving some points to this only because I’ve unfortunately heard worse music in my life.

In conclusion: No.

Standout tracks: Not available as every song on this record is irritatingly similar.

Score: 2.5


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