Blutrausch

Ok, I might be picky when it comes to sound. I don’t like it too clean and digital, but I don’t like the horrible productions a lot of old school black metal acts use to sound ‘evil’, ‘trve’ and whatnot. Some harshness can be really effective to send shivers down your spine, just as a powerful and thick sound can come at you like a punch in the gut. But come on, what the hell is Descending Darkness trying to accomplish with this abysmal sound? Sometimes I think bands strive to accomplish the most awful sounding piece of crap you’ve ever heard…

After a useless intro the abnormality that is "Blutrausch" sets in, and it’s so screechy and noisy I have to turn down the volume to not rupture an eardrum. The guitars have absolutely no heaviness whatsoever in them, and could just as well have been recorded with a tape recorded hidden underneath a jacket at a low-budget concert. Now wait, scratch that; the jacket would’ve made it sound too good. It’s so thin and horrible-sounding that it’s difficult to really hear what’s going on. But I suppose it falls somewhere in the semi thrash-influenced old school black metal genre. As far as the vocals go they’re gnarly in a bad way, but that might as well be due to the sound issue. And you constantly hear his breath in the mic, making it even more low-budget, teenage rehearsal room-esque. The only thing I can’t really complain about is the drums. Sure, the cymbals are noisy-as-hell, and you can hardly hear the bass drum, but at least you can hear enough to know this guy can actually play.

I first heard of Descending Darkness when Ashen Productions re-released their old demo "Gevatter hein" last year, and if I remember correctly they hailed it as being ‘ugly black metal’. I suppose I can go with that description, but to me it’s ugly in all the wrong manners. I guess this is what they want to sound like, but I can’t for the life of me understand why. Take for instance the break in "Sadistic domination", which would’ve sounded really cool and eerie if just given a better production. The fact is the entire track would probably kick ass under different circumstances. There’s supposedly some female vocals somewhere on the record, but I can’t hear when the hell that would be. Or maybe she was stuffed in the trunk of a car, driven out into the woods and recorded with a cellphone so that’s why I can’t hear her vocals.

Originally written for http://www.mylastchapter.net