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Krieg > Patrick Bateman > Reviews
Krieg - Patrick Bateman

The Soundtrack of a Psychopath - 98%

Tzeench, March 18th, 2008

Krieg, another strong enforcer of the USBM scene during the cusp of the second to third wave, Lord Imperial & Co. have always strived pushing the limit of extremity, mercilessness and psychosis that makes the pale skeleton of black metal in the mentoring roots of the European forbearers.

Patrick Bateman, both the main character of a psychopath in Bret Easton Ellis’ literary masterpiece – “American Psycho” – and Krieg’s fourth EP to date is the embodiment of every shadowed spirit of evil in man.

The EP is very short, blatant, and unforgiving in its visceral delivery. Clocking in at just about fourteen-and-a-half minutes, this album is actually only two songs. The first, third and fifth tracks are actually interludes of sound clips taken from the movie based on the aforementioned novel – the creepy voice of actor Christian Bale. Both actual tracks burst instantaneously between each interlude with no room for rest, an aural suffocation of quadruple-thick bass, distorting mid-range and shattering treble. The vocals by Imperial are rather very throaty, due to the sensitively loud volume overreaching its threshold and clipping at times - all instruments fighting together to fit into the mix, but that’s okay because it works perfectly in enforcing the violence and sadistic lust that this album captures in thematic atmosphere. In fact, this song material is surprising improvised – not an easily achieved feat, yet again, Imperial ingeniously creates the mental landscape for the journey into the mind of a psychopathic serial killer.

I get the most gruesome, chaotic, violence, frenzied visions and thoughts as I listen to the blisteringly fast buzzes of the guitars, the throbbing hums of the bass and the rumbling, crumbling and tumbling thunder cracks of the drums – the visions of Bateman slaughtering his next victim, day or night. All topped off by some of the most frightening screams on the least hint of rest between the instruments.

Krieg have accomplished yet another defiant landmark in the realm of musical expectations for black metal. The liner notes speak for themselves most accurately – the music in the spirit of greed, decadence and disgust that resides in every man…

…The soundtrack of a psychopath…

Insane.... - 90%

Symphony_Of_Terror, December 12th, 2004

Krieg is a band known for making the most insane, sick, and chaotic music possible. Fascinated with death and their listeners committing suicide, Patrick Bateman is a great experiment in pushing the limits of Krieg. People will listen to Krieg not for the structure, not for its darkness, not for how heavy it can be, because Krieg lacks all these features. What makes Patrick Bateman desirable is that its quite possibly the most sick, insane, chaotic and devastating Krieg release out their, making it in a class of its own.

Patrick Bateman isn’t much of an Mcd/ep, only two songs and three other tracks of spoken word from the movie American Physco. Patrick Bateman is a psychotic character, one who feels no emotion but that of disgust driving him to kill, he is insane, and that is the goal of Patrick Bateman by Krieg, to musically capture the insanity of a psychopath murderer. Each of the two songs on this album (II and IV, non are named), come after some disturbing spoken word that will probably make you feel better about yourself. The spoken word of Patrick Bateman is a perfect precursor to the songs on this ep, they set up an atmosphere of insanity and sickness, which is exactly the best way to describe the music on this ep. Lord Imperial and company are producing the sickest music possible here. The guitars are relentless, inaudible for the most part, and ever constant to create a sense of non stop insanity. This is a very effective way to create an atmosphere of insanity. The atmosphere is also further augmented by pounding, devastating, and chaotic drums, ones with loose structure, but enough to keep it from sounding like noise. What really makes Patrick Bateman shine is the vocals. Lord Imperial seems to be stretching the limits of his vocal ability (or for any humans) by making them as loud, harsh, and screeching as possible. Lord Imperial is screeching and yelling as loud and harsh as possible. Everything sung is beyond comprehension, this of course is what makes Patrick Bateman work. The goal of these songs is to create the most devastating, nonstop, relentless, chaotic, and insane music possible. That is certainly what Patrick Bateman does, it perfectly creates this insane music without having it fall into the category of noise.

If Patrick Bateman were a full length album, it would be a horrible release for a simple reason. Not because the music is bad (well the music isn’t so great, but the atmosphere created is amazing), its because the two songs on this album don’t offer anything different from one another. What is taken out of II as enjoyable can be taken out of IV as enjoyable. If this were a full length release, no one would be able to take it, the songs would all be the same and it would just be to much of an assault. So with Patrick Bateman being an Ep, is a perfect addition to the Krieg library, a perfect and successful experiment. The only flaw is that the music could have been a little more structured to enhance replay, for there are no real memorable moments on this release, just music to be played all the way through, start to finish. I recommend this to all Krieg fans and anyone who likes their music loud and insane.