Kann mir jemand erklären...

[Graf von Hirilorn]

...was eine Band, ein Label, oder wen auch immer dazu treiben kann, ein solches Cover für eine BM-Scheibe zu verwenden?



Kann mir jemand, darüber hinaus, erklären, was uns mit diesem Bild gesagt werden soll?

Danke.

[Mr. X]

Hehe, ich kann mich erinnern. Ich frage mich aber eher: Was ist ein Necromicon? Und warum war das im A5-Format?

[Graf von Hirilorn]

Noch mehr Fragen...

vielleicht weiss es ja jemand...

[Mr. X]

Hm. Der Dämon hat irgendwie kein Geschlechsteil, dafür hält der Typ sein Messer phallusartig in der Nähe. Vielleicht hat der Typ den Dämon kastriert? Die Hände um das Paar sollen wohl Begierde symbolisieren. Der Dämon materialisiert sich irgendwie aus dem Nebel, der über der Abenddämmerung liegt.

Schon komisch, was?

[Hagel]

Solche Bilder haben die bulgarischen LKW-Fahrer immer auf ihren Führerhäusern.

[Mr. X]

Vielleicht kann dieses Review hier helfen?

This album makes self-decapitation sound appealing - 4%
Written by Egregius on September 25th, 2003

I suddenly feel the terrible urge to warn people about this album. This is sonic torture. No not the Stalaggh-way, or kvlt black metal type sonic torture. No this is so much crap compressed into an aluminium disc, that they needed an extra sized digipack to carry it into your home.

And that's the first problem..in a desperate bid for attention, it comes in A5 digipack format, which is simply unwieldy and impractical, with no added value whatsover (still a small booklet) except to the sellers. There will be *no* collectors looking for this in 20 years!

Why? Because this is a horrid peace of crap, so much in that it has become fecality incarnate. That it's labeled symphonic black metal should have been the first warning sign. That it pretends to be a black metal album while the lyrical theme is that of a tragic lovestory was the second..

No wait, fuck that, why should you be buying an album from a band that can't even spell Necronomicon right in the first place?

Ho-hum, on to the ..'music'..
If I remember correctly (it's been a long time thankfully, since I submitted myself to this piece of ..ugh) the intro was a horribly corny synth intro, after which the real torture starts.

You can read along in the booklet, since it's a theme album about the 'Sightveiler'. Well it's a monster of some sorts.
The 'real' music begins: boring riff...more of the boring riff...more of it. And that's describing all instruments. I don't think they made the bass audible in the mix, but both guitars, and the drums, and the keyboards...they kept doing their boring riffs over and over with a standard progression/build-up you see coming miles away. It's not fast, it's not doomy, it just drags on and on and on and.. *shoots energizer bunny*.

But you know what? That's not the worst part. I can tolerate completely uninteresting notes strung together in an unoriginal, uncreative and boring way, even though the music whines and draws your attention like a cat scratching open your leg (ears).

No, the lyrics and the tracktitles are worse. The theme...words can't describe how horribly bland and uninspired it is. Ok, so it's about the Sightveiler who stalks the hero of the story and then shit happens, and the monster influences him to harm the girl he loves or something, but then love conquers it all. Or something like that. Ok the concept of a monster influencing the hero in a bad way isn't that bad. All creepy and mysterious. But why is it done so BADLY?!? Every 'plot-development' you can see coming 3 songs in advance. That love would conquer the monster was apparent as soon as the hero saw the girl and fell in love with her in like song 3 or 4. Hell, just looking at the cover of the album you know all you need to know: that it's going to be predictable. I'd give bonus points for the lyrics rhyming, if it weren't for the continual a.b.a.b-rhyming scheme and the fact that it only makes the entire thing even more predictable.
And what's with the horribly pretentious track-titles? Oh wait they fit the pretentious theme/lyrics perfectly. "Ooh let's make an exciting and mysterious story!" "Yeah! Too bad we can't write worth a crap!"

But wait, there's more. Yes, I saved worst for last. It's true that the music is less interesting than pc-fan-hiss to listen to. It's also true that the bandmembers display less talent on their instruments than pebbles stuck in my shoe do. And it's true that the theme and story were stillborn before the band got the idea to conceive the abomination.
But...nothing could ever match the suck-factor of the vocals. No, not even Fred Durst. And I'm being serious here!

The vocalist sounds like he's struggling with asthma as well as pretending to do black metal vocals for a band. He sounds so annoying doing his near-wheezy screams that you have to force yourself to listen to it, past the first 3 seconds of utter disbelief that someone like this wouldn't be kept out of a recording studio. On the other hand, the music and the lyrics are so boring that you get lulled to sleep, and you simply become a comatose zombie continually annoyed by the vocals. Just listening to the vocalist struggle with airflows through his throat sucks the air out of my lungs.

And to think I've seen this album get two reviews in the vein of 'Brilliant technical black metal!' in two seperate mail-order magazines..

The only thing this album has to do with black metal is that you get a urge to kill certain bandmembers.

ADDENDUM:
Someone brought to my attention that I forgot that the band had 3 'vocalists'. It's true; there was also a grunter and a female clean vocalist. The female vocalist plays the love-interest in the story. It's obvious why she plays the love-interest for the asthma-vocalist: she can't sing worth crap either. And finally, there's the grunter doing the vocals for the Sightveiler. The sad thing is, he's the only one with even remotely impressive vocals (a decent guttural grunt), and it gets used so little.
After this album, only 2 bandmembers stayed while the rest left. Among the stayers were the grunter and the bassplayer. That should be a sign at least.

[Drakkul]

Es geht wohl schlicht und einfach um Voyerismus.Eigentlich möchte ich aber lieber erst gar nicht wissen warum man ein solches Cover verwendet.Angesichts dieser Band und dieser Scheibe ist es letztendlich aber auch nicht wichtig.

[Oxford]

Und ich habe mich gefragt, wer ein solches BM Album überhaupt kauft?
Und wieso hält er dieses einschneidige Messer falsch herum? So hält man normalerweise zweischneidige - ausser vielleicht zum Brot schneiden....

[Fossor]

Das ist auch so ein Kandidat, wenn auch nicht ganz so schlimm:

[Mr. X]

Die Könige der miesen BM-Covers, Ophthalamia:

[Oxford]

Via Dolorosa besitze ich sogar und hätte ich es nicht geschenkt bekommen, ich hätte es mir wohl wegen dem Cover nie gekauft! Ich weiss bis heute nicht, was das Cover symbolisieren soll und was es mit der Musik zu tun hat.....

[Graf von Hirilorn]

Alle diese Cover bewegen sich noch im Bereich Metal-zulässiger Dämlichkeit... Keines kommt auch nur IM ENTFERNTESTEN an dieses Whiplash-Schrott-Airbrush-Ding von Necromicon ran! Das Rätsel bleibt bestehen...

[Caligula]

schissi !! stuehl !!!

[Ragnar]

es wird kaum was aussagen wollen, sondern wurde aus purem blödsinn oder aus dummheit verwendet. viele überlegen sich doch gar nicht, was sie eigentlich aussagen wollen. ich denke, viele WOLLEN gar nichts aussagen sondern einfach musik machen.

[Oxford]

Mag ja sein, dass keine Aussage gemacht werden will. Trotzdem würde ich mir gut überlegen, was nun auf das Cover kommt und was nicht. So ein Cover passt dann wohl eher zu einem japanischen Fantasy Märchen als zu BM.