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Striborg, "Embittered Darkness" / "Isle de Morts"
Compiling two separate albums on one disc, this Striborg release is a relatively disappointing affair. Over 70 minutes of pedestrian black metal is not something I need in life.
Southern Lord
This was my introduction to Striborg (a one man act like most underground black metal artists, the misanthropy always gets in the way of forming a band) and I must say I was expecting more. Sunn O))) have rated this guy quite highly and as such they’ve not only named a track from their Black One album after him but have released this disc on Southern Lord. My expectations were high; I was hoping for something experimental or at least pushing the boundaries of black metal but instead I found it to be mostly unremarkable with only the odd track grabbing my attention.
The first six tracks make up Embittered Darkness, a collection of new recordings. The opening piece is a standard introduction to set the mood (bleak in case you had to ask) and the following song, “Wrapped in a Cocoon out of Harm’s Way,” is by the book black metal in all aspects apart from the drumming which is unusual for the genre in that it relied very little on blast beats and more on melodic playing. It’s only on “Race of Apathy” that I can see any sign of Striborg’s supposed brilliance. An unaccompanied and out of tune acoustic guitar repeats the same piece of music constantly before suddenly some paint stripping overdriven guitar and another curious drum beat kick in. The rest of Embittered Darkness is more of the same with very little music of note.
The demos that make up Isle de Morts sound like they’ve come from the same recording session as the songs from Embittered Darkness. Striborg must be a musical time capsule. An artist that shows no evolution over a decade to me is a one trick pony. The only improvement or major change that I could hear was that his vocals sound less ridiculous on the newer material. At one point on “Return of the Dark Lord” he actually pulls off a great Donald Duck impression. I’m sad to say that the best part of Isle de Morts is the less than two minute keyboard intro. Most of the other tracks could be swapped around at will as they are all very samey with little character of their own.
I know part of the aesthetic of black metal is that having a poor production wins you cool points but to be honest I’m sick of flat sounding black metal records. Equally I don’t want over the top symphonic interludes and the music multitracked to death but there’s only so much that can be done with a tiny, tinny practice amp and a distortion pedal. Striborg seems to have used the exact same equipment for his 1997 demo as he has for the new songs; there’s little presence to the music. The audio is also heavily compressed with little to no dynamics left intact which destroys any chance of the music creating a decent atmosphere. It doesn’t make it grim, kvlt or whatever word these days describes having a weak sound; it makes it sound crap.
Southern Lord have been completely on the ball with nearly all the black metal they’ve released previously but with Striborg they are way off the mark. It’s not an inherently bad record (although some of the vocals are very try-hard) but it is unoriginal and boring which is almost worse than being a bad record.
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