Destroyer, or About How to Philosophize with the Hammer

This is maybe the most versatille Gorgoroth album and one of the best Black Metal albums, if it hasn't been for the hideous production.

Overall, Destroyer isn't a bad album. Actually it's not even an album, but something like a Compilation of unreleased songs. Back then, Infernus has recorded several songs with different musicians and wasn't able to make whole albums during the respective sessions. So he decided to put the songs he has played with the members together and release them as album.

The first song on Destroyer is the only song on this album with Gaahl as singer and if you hear the first seconds of noise, you notice that this album will be more or less totally screwed by effects and other stuff that actually should not find its way on a Gorgoroth release. But the riff after that and the groove that is unusual for black metal, really makes this something great. Gaahl hasn't exaggerated with his screams as he did afterwards on the albums from 2000 - 2006. Destroyer is overall a really decent track.

The most outstanding songs on this album are those with Pest on vocals, and I don't mean they're great because of his screams - well, not primariy. Open The Gates, Om kristen og jødisk tru, På slagmark langt mot nord, The Virginborn, most of these songs show us a new side of Gorgoroth, the attempt to add melodic and orchestral parts to the cold and aggressive Gorgoroth we knew from their first 3 albums. They are the highlights of Destroyer. The Virginborn is by the longest song on the album and maybe the longest song Gorgoroth has ever written.

Next to The Devil, The Sinner And His Journey, which is sung by someone called T-Reaper who I have never even heard of ever before or after, you have another very special singer on Destroyer: Infernus himself. Sadly, there are only two songs here with him, one is a Darkthrone cover and the other one is Blodoffer. It's basically just monotonous tremolo picking and drums with Infernus doing vocals that sound like frog noises. Also it has weird effects added here and there that sound as if Infernus recorded a can falling down the stairs or so, and that is so loud that it makes parts of the song inaudible. A waste of time and I don't know what that all has to do with a blood sacrifice anyway.

In the end, this Compilation is really interesting and even has some good songs on it, which I wished would be played live more often. However, the addings are not only pointless but ruin parts of the songs most of the times, not to mention the production quality that is even worse than on Under The Sign Of Hell. If Infernus should re-recorded this when Pest rejoined the band, instead of the other album, this could have been a really great experience.

After three spot-on albums in a row, everyone's second-favorite "true Norwegian black metal" band decided that it was time to showcase that they are capable of boring you to death. I would be lying if I said that I had high hopes for this, but once I realized that the music on this album is just as messy as the lineup or the cover, I knew that I was in for one hell of an experience.

While the band never really had a stable lineup for longer than 2 records (and even that's a bit of a stretch), if we think of this album as a full-length rather than a compilation (which it should have been), they got an unreasonable amount of new members. As the brain of the band, Infernus does something on every track, but rather than just his usual guitar and bass contribution, he sings and plays drums for a couple of tracks. We also get introduced to Gaahl and T-Reaper (both of them only appearing on one song each), but thankfully, Pest is still doing the majority of the vocals. There are also some minor changes in the instrument department, but those aren't as conspicuous as the vocals.

The album starts surprisingly strong. The title track is where the production is the rawest and the music is the most unforgiving. The main riff is catchy yet incredibly aggressive and somehow it goes perfectly with Gaahl's vocals. He has this somewhat clean-ish touch to his shrieks (I know, it doesn't make too much sense, but that's how it sounds) and the only complaint I have for this track is the drums being way too repetitive while sounding flat, but I can look past that. Open the Gates, on the other hand, is near perfect in every single way. The guitar melodies are top-notch and so are Pest's vocals. It sounds like it was made for Under the Sign of Hell (which could be the case) and that's all I need.

Sadly, that's about all the positive things. The rest of the record suffers from mediocrity. Some songs sound like there was no thought put into them (e.g. Blodoffer) and even the ones that had potential are put down by some boring repetitive riffs (e.g. The Devil, the Sinner and His Journey). The Virginborn has this slower, majestic sound, but as good as it might sound for the first half of the song, it turns out that 8 minutes of the same riff is not something Gorgoroth can do well. Not every song is completely ruined by these issues of course, but they are annoying nonetheless.

The fact that it doesn't sound like an album does ruin it though. The 4 different vocalists are just unique enough to make the record feel like it was made for 4 different records from 4 different bands and it really throws me off to go from the high-pitched shrieks of Pest to the diet Inquisition style of mumbling of Infernus. The contrast is just too big to go unnoticed. The last thing that bothers me is the Darkthrone cover. It's beyond me how a band that is part of the same scene and supposedly represents the same style, managed to butcher a song like this. The riffs are played correctly, I'll give them that, but the effects on the vocals (and the vocals themselves while we are at it) are just horrible.

Overall this record starts really strong but goes downhill really fast and it ultimately ends up being a below-average 2nd wave black metal album that has nothing impressive to offer other than the rawness of the production and the first 2 songs.

The highlights of the album are Destroyer and Open the Gates.

A band's early period is crucial. That's never so true as when a band in question has taken part in history. The infamous Second Wave has been talked about to death, and Gorgoroth are often spoken of among the likes of Mayhem, Darkthrone and Burzum-- all superior acts, by a longshot at that. In my eyes, Gorgoroth have always been something of a B-band; their fame isn't for much more than the fact that they were in the right place and the right time. By the point of their fourth album Destroyer however, I'm starting to see that inconsistent quality was out of their hands. From the earliest stages, Gorgoroth had potential, but any time they neared greatness was met with lineup issues. Pentagram sounded like they might be going somewhere, but the lineup dissipated by Antichrist, leaving their second album a patchwork clearinghouse of sorts. After getting their shit together for Under the Sign of Hell, the lineup couldn't hold all the way through Destroyer. Like Antichrist, the result is an album that sounds like it could have been compiled from a couple of different bands. There is great material here, but there's no reason an album should have been released sounding this inconsistent.

If Under the Sign of Hell was Gorgoroth's Pure Holocaust, Destroyer is their Panzerfaust. When I've listened to this album under a cheerier disposition, I can enjoy its patchwork nature as an eclectic bag of tricks. Like Panzerfaust, the pieces don't always match up, but there are enough solid ideas here to make a potentially great album. There seems to be a general consensus that Destroyer is where Gorgoroth finally lost their touch. In this instance I feel I'd have to play devil's advocate. With throwaways like "The Devil, the Sinner and His Journey" and a useless Darkthrone cover of "Slottet i det fjerne" at the end, Destroyer will never feel like a complete work. Because of this however, listeners are all too willing to look past the brighter parts of it. The album opens up with an appropriately wild title track. I've never looked to Gorgoroth to challenge me in any way, but the noisy thrash clatter is a lot to process at once.

Gorgoroth offers more traditional-edged songs here. "Open the Gates" and "Om kristen og jødisk tru" remind of the fact that Infernus' has always had his heart on melodic riffs. Of the tracks here, "The Virginborn" comes closest to greatness, drawing out their blackened aura to quasi-doom proportions, somewhat akin to the grim outro "The Devil is Calling" offered Under the Sign of Hell. For a band considered to be one of the most archetypal Second Wave groups, Gorgoroth seldom seemed content on one style, and the same definitely applies to Destroyer. Despite the quality tracks, there's no sense of flow between songs, and there are tracks here that take the distasteful noisiness of the title track without bolstering it with memorable riffs. This is a mixed bag if ever there was one, but for its merits it definitely deserves more regard than what it's been given hence by fans.

The magic of the Norwegian black metal awakening faded pretty fast. This was due mainly to albums such as "Destroyer...". It manifested the downward movement of Gorgoroth, because a certain lack of ideas could not be ignored. To make things even worse, some of the here presented ideas did not work. For example, "Open the Gates" was actually a more or less decent mid-tempo number. The only problem was that the band tried to enrich it with a short woeful vocal line. The fifth track suffered by a similar defect while offering partially hymnal vocals. No big deal, but completely superfluous. Nevertheless, "Open the Gates" marked the first tune which was worth listening. By contrast, the noisy opener failed to develop the power of its solid main riff while setting the focus on vehemence. Yet this approach revealed a wrong understanding of black metal. Even one of the most radical sub genres needs a well balanced mix of brutality and melody, but the stupid hammering of the opener did not pay tribute to this matter of course.

The album was equipped with a crude sound which did not enhance the joy of listening. In other words, the fact that the record was released by Nuclear Blast did not play a major role. The muddy guitar sound lacked of power. It was therefore not able to generate the necessary intensity. Aggravating this situation, the band seemed to be interested in creating some industrial noise. The corresponding piece ("Blodoffer") left the paths of black metal without having a clearly defined new destination. I respected their decision to seek new possibilities. But generally speaking, it is a tough challenge to convince a conservative metalhead of a new approach while struggling with a sloppy production. It was therefore particularly regrettable that the album neither had a good black metal sound nor a good sound at all. The mediocrity of the mix also applied to the vocals. Each and every performance of the different lead singers suffered from an overdose of technical aids. The consequence was the total absence of any form of charisma - and this statement applied not only to the hateful nagging of the vocalists, but to the entire mix at all. Inter alia due to the shortcomings of the production, the Darkthrone cover appeared as a weak and crippled creature. I was really surprised that the band was capable to kill the power of a track of "Transylvanian Hunger" completely.

Nevertheless, the main problem of "Destroyer..." was constituted by its inconsistent compositions. "Om kristen og jødisk tru", for instance, offered a strong beginning with furious and comparatively dramatic guitars. But an almost meditative, slow-moving part after 48 seconds was the first harbinger of further tranquil parts and the solo also failed to set positive accents. This was less a song than a gathering of musical fragments. Contrariwise, "The Virginborn" marked the most consistent song. Too bad, that its consistency was based on the idealess formula of the song. The slowly creeping piece failed to present gripping riffs or anything else that would have justified its length of more than eight minutes. Under the bottom line, this tune was nothing else but a sonic tranquilizer with a success rate of 100%. But in the end, it did not matter, because it was just the last nail in the coffin of a below-average album.

I'm not always against bands going very popular and I don't bash them for that single reason, still I have come to mind that Destroyer, Or How to Philosophize with the Hammer is one of the weakest moments in Gorgoroth's carreer, shattering it's potential and the possible status it should have achieved. Signing to Nuclear Blast was a first questionable deed, since they are suspected for eating artirts from the inside, even though the name of Gorgoroth had already been promoted a lot by various popular sources. After several listens, I don't know if it's as bad as Under the Sign of Hell but it undulates around that rank, without reaching very high in my interest meter, so I consider it a letdown.

A major drawback of the album is it's poor production, which characterizes it's weakness to deliver, even when the music goes through some notable moments. It creates a sterile and puzzling sound that doesn't have a healthy balance between the vocals and the instrumentation, as well as the extra keys that have been added in various tracks, which are completely buried or just glitches in seconds. Sometimes, the random growls and fast cymbal hits don't make the guitar lines recognizable at all, resulting in a black metal / noise, dreary travesty, ruining completely the outcome. This can be mistaken as a choice, something done on purpose, a message from the band of it's obscure attitude and unearthly sound, but not all noises are melodies.

Examples of the previous statement exist everywhere in the album. From the very beginning, "Destroyer" starts with a massive instrument hammering intro and the signs of a musical structure begin to show thirty seconds later, where a riff emerges from the overall randomness. It's the only track Gaahl sings to in the album and his vocals are pretty decent, especially during it's second half, even though the song itself is tiring. More random samples come along in the third track "The Devil, The Sinner And His Journey". Here, we are introduced to Frost and his great drumming style, which is also the only above average track in terms of the drums, as all the other are the typical necessity. Yet, it ends abruptly and has various key lines (played by Daimonion of Enslaved, probably) that seem like an experimentation, without fitting at all to the music.

Furthermore, the sixth track "Blodoffer" is just horrible. It's as simplistic as it can be, it has some awful sound effects behind it and disgusting retching vocals that conclude to one of the worst songs in the album. I almost thought it was a joke when I first listened to it. It's an ongoing, monotonous piece of trash. Sadly, the Darkthrone cover they did of the song "Slottet i det fjerne" should also be considered as an attempted rape, it's really bad. If I wasn't aware of the actual, I would not have cought a single riff in there, it is shadowed by the same problems of production and sound, as the rest of the album. "The Virginborn" is a slower and longer track (lasting eight minutes) which isn't much of an activity, but it's generally listenable.

On the other hand, the few legit moments of Destroyer are basically the tracks "Om Kristen Og Jødisk Tru" and "Open The Gates", which have an old-school black metal feeling, lacking the various annoying elements and keeping a good riff or two as a core. I didn't expect to like the epic clean vocals in "På Slagmark Langt Mot Nord" because I hated them in Under the Sign of Hell, but they seem to work out well here. All in all, the music in Destroyer is not at all good and it often shows or unstable songwriting. Could it be that so many people were involved in the album? The main part was written by Infernus and Tormentor, but different musicians are playing different roles in different tracks and that formula rarely works to me.

The origin of the album's title is not hard to guess, as the book Twilight of the Idols, or How One Philosophizes with a Hammer by Nietzche has the same title. It is the same fucking title. If these people were so influenced by it, at least think of your own sentence, it's not that difficult. Everyone knows how staggering huge album titles are, and they leave very few to the imagination. Gorgoroth later took the first half of the book "Twilight of the Idols" to use it in a later album in 2003, thinking that by adding another phrase it would get more original. I don't like it when bands do that and it's not a healthy influence process. Of course it has nothing to do with the music, but it does to the overall worth of the album.

In overall, I think this album does more harm than good to the image of the band, as for the artwork, the music, the line up and the subject itself. They tried new things with new people and that by definition demands more time to work compositions, so a year after the previous full length was rather a hasty and sloppy decision, to release a sloppy album. I would say Destroyer is boring and sometimes bothering to the ear.

Originally written for:
http://arsoncafe.blogspot.gr/

Destroyer is a strange album. The production, sonic quality, and even lineup vary wildly. In most other albums, it wouldn't work. On Destroyer, these elements seem to enhance the atmosphere, instead of detracting from it. The use of samples has been criticized by many for cluttering up the sound, but this is a cluttered album. The additional guitar work of Tormentor doesn't really do anything technical or all that mind-blowing at all (most leads are quite simple, and Tormentor spends a sizable amount of time just feeding back into the mic) but this also adds to the fundamental characteristic of Destroyer:

This is chaos. The atmosphere on Destroyer is the first time I feel that Gorgoroth actually produced an album appropriate to the name. There are two instances pf the name occurring in Tolkien's literature. The first is a valley that was bound by massive cliffs on one side and cursed woods on the other, and was filled with grotesque oversized spiders and other dire pests; the second is the plateau in Mordor that most of the events concerning Mordor went down, being the location of Sauron's Barad Dur tower and Orodruin (Mount Doom.) Destroyer's atmosphere here is appropriate for both. The guitars sound just as harsh as the guitars on Under the Sign of Hell, but far more spacious and monumental, like icy, poisonous winds cascading from cursed plains.

Indeed, a tidy mix like that found on Antichrist or even the garage like production of Under the Sign of Hell would've detracted from the jarring, disorganized genius here. The one constant, however, is the stark minimalism coupled with a seemingly cluttered atmosphere. This contradiction is most present in the song Blodoffer, which is a song that I'll admit took me a few listens to wrap my head around. It begins with one chord that's repeated for the most part with little variation, with the crashing and cacophonous samples attacking the listener, until the song resolves into a more traditional riff and pattern. While the rest of the songs are not quite as inaccessible as Blodoffer, that's the general feel of the album: spacious yet cluttered, minimalist yet overpowering.

The ever-shifting lineup gives each song it's own atmosphere, and while the whole album has a definite atmosphere, it is one that is both droning and jarring. The vocals of Infernus, while oft-criticized, are perfect for the job: disgusting, vile, and caustic. Pest handles vocals in most songs, though, and handles them quite well. Tormentor, their one-time second guitarist, is present in most songs, and while the difference is subtle, it's there, and Tormentor adds his own atmosphere to the songs. The songs themselves range from the faster (Destroyer, The Devil, The Sinner, and His Journey) to the slower (Open the Gates, the Virginborn). Tormentor's leads are most apparent in the song Om kristen og Jødisk Tru, where the lead guitar pretty much carries the crux of the song. Still, nothing technical is being done here; the atmosphere is the prime goal and that's what propels Destroyer to greatness.

Destroyer is not what I would often be playing in my car stereo, unlike a lot of other Gorgoroth albums; This is more for listening at home, maybe even on headphones. It's not Gorgoroth's best effort, but while Destroyer seems to be the less-understood album in Gorgoroth's discography, the atmosphere is killer, and this album does contain some real gems, and this should definitely not be overlooked!

I was worried at first when I heard Gorgoroth signed to nuclear blast records, I prayed to the gods of metal that they wouldn't sell out like Dimmu Borgir.
My prayers didn't go un-heard! Once again Infernus delivered the goods.

Firstly this album has a much colder raw sound than its three predecessors had and overall its hard to spot the similarities between Destroyer and the early works cos of the almost entirely new line-up.

The guitar work of Infernus really shines here. This becomes apparent when the mental intro on the title track ends and the riff kicks in, it gets louder and more insane as a mash of frenzied drumming and machine like noises are mixed up to culminate in one of the most insane black metal songs ever.
From here the pace doesn't really let up as Gorgoroth refuse to compromise their style by putting short slower passages into the middle of songs like so many other bands.

Obviously the drumming is good ( after-all this is black metal ) but alongside the guitar the vocals are amazing too. Gaahl's voice is your typical evil screeching but on this record they fit perfectly in time with the drums and guitars etc. This is cos of Infernus' brilliant song writing.

There is a big mix of styles on this album that are all very well put together. These include some more traditional metal style riffs like on "The Virgin Born" which is the only mid-paced track present. And a menacing presence of electronic samples like on the opener which thankfully never dominate the music and an awesome old school sound which make a very original sound throughout which has never been matched in the eight years since this album was vomitted forth into existence. Many bands have these elements in their music but only Gorgoroth have managed to blend them so well to make such a frenzied black metal assault.

Push play at your own peril. The first track on this album must be one of the most insane black metal songs ever. The opening 20 seconds of this track is like driving 200 mph in the wrong lane, not that I have ever tried driving a car, but I imagine it being close to this experience.

If you wish for distorted guitars like the ones on Gorgoroth’s other releases you’ll be disappointed. Not for the absence of them, but for the fact that people don’t make this kind of black metal any more. “Destroyer”, as the song is aptly named, is an ugly song, and the album is also an unpleasant acquaintance, though in my eyes that is just a flattering remark.
The albums itself spans over 4 years of Gorgoroth’s celebrated career (from 1994-199, something that explains the vast horde of musicians appearing on this “compilation” (I believe there are a total of nine different sets of fingerprints on this record), and the songs are therefore very varied, both when it comes to style and when it comes to quality. Overall, the album is still a typical Gorgoroth release, as it combines the extremely competent almost light-speed guitar-work that is the trademark of Infernus and the other stringmen, and the lovely melodic parts that makes the crushing brutality of songs like “Destroyer” appear almost unnecessary.

My personal favourites are “Destroyer”, “Open the Gates” and “The Virginborn”. As mentioned before, “Destroyer” is one hell of a beast. It speeds by as falling church masonry. A thing that gorgoroth has done on their later albums, and an idea that I support wholeheartedly. Why start an album with a lame two-minute ambient piece, or with some (cheesy) film-quotes, when you can just give the listener a minor head trauma? An interesting note about this song is that current vocalist Gaahl, made his first Gorgoroth appearance on this track (as far as I know). This song is therefore in some way a glance into the future of the band. “Open the Gates” and “The Virginborn” have an entirely different line-up, namely Infernus, Tormentor, Vrolok, Ares and Pest (these songs must then be from the period around “Antichrist” and “Under the Sign of Hell”), and are a huge step from the likes of “Destroyer”. The songs are much slower, and in these songs Gorgoroth shows that they have more to them than meets the eye. Actually these songs are so soothing and melodic that apart from the vocals this almost sounds like music that most people would be able to accept. Luckily Pest destroys any hopes of that, with his evil high-pierced voice described how Jesus lies dead at his feet.
As you may have figured, this is not merely a brutal black metal album about Satanism, war and u-boat sounds (!?). This is a political and religious manifesto, an open attack on Christianity, and its enslaved pawns.

Sadly, Gorgoroth will not print their lyrics for various reasons, one being that they do not want bands to cover them, so if you don’t understand the words, then it’s simply tough luck. This is a bit odd considering that they cover Darkthrone’s “Slottet I Det Fjerne”, but let’s leave that for another time, and just respect the band's wishes. From what you can salvage, Gorgoroth’s famous philosophical side (look at “Antichrist” for an instance), is still being nurtured, and Infernus & co. has always tried to show the listener that this is not only musical compositions, but is in fact works of art, in which the band tries to take a stand.

Gorgoroth has always had an enormous sense of originality, and only the band member’s solo-projects manage to make something remotely close to this beast. Pest’s Obtained Enslavement, or to some degree Orcustus, is close, but this is the magnum opus. “Destroyer or About How to Philosophise With the Hammer “ is truly Gorgoroth’s finest hour, if you have the time, try to find room to enjoy this tour de force, but take your time, and I’ll dare promise that you’ll not be disappointed with this album. Enjoy!