Whiff o’ the Week (9/7/14)
All things decay. Life blooms, grows, withers, dies, and decays. Man. Beast. Plant. Even the greatest structures we erect, the monuments to our prowess and might, all will collapse under the inevitable crawl of time. Vanity. Vanity. All is vanity. Even art, timeless in form, is consumed by the blight of mediocrity, leaving behind mere husks of glory. This is a celebration of that glory lost. This is Whiff o’ the Week.
W.
Metal as a genre is no stranger to pretense. However, when an artist is so pretentious that his own self-inflated ego overshadows the art he creates, we often take note. When the art itself is an offensive mess undeserving of praise, we must turn our collective backs on the charlatans. Such is the case with Liturgy. I think Percy Bysshe Shelley did a much better job explaining how I feel about this megalomaniac and his pathetic attempt at black metal than I ever could.
“I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things, The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains: round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
-Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias
Papa Joe Thrashnkill
I was driving home and minding my own damn business when this song came on Sirius/XM Liquid Metal and assaulted me with its pandering bullshit. The whole fucking point of covering a beloved song is to make it sound like your band is halfway competent. Instead, these boners good cop/bad copped over the entire song while adding TWO weak-ass breakdowns. The most egregious example comes at 3:08. I hope these guys all live together in a house with one bathroom so I can upperdeck them all at once. If you’re in this band and reading this, I hate you.
The Masterlord
I nominate present-day HammerFall as a collective group for Whiff of the Week and official target of all projectiles forever. They beguiled us with talk of “(r)Evolution.” They recruited Andreas Marschall to create an album cover with their classic mascot, Hector, hearkening back to Glory to the Brave and Legacy of Kings. They even released two decent singles. It smelled like hope. There was nothing to suggest that (r)Evolution wouldn’t be the return-to-form we’ve been waiting for. What we got was another album of phoned-in choruses and recycled riffs. It’s a step up from Infected, but it’s the bait-and-switch that really hurts. HammerWhiff.
Stockhausen
Chimaira is officially no more, and I’d like to send them out in a whiff. What started as a passable band with moderately alright tunes turned into a hilarious TUFF GUY band with trite, uninspired chug riffs that your neighborhood BDubsBro would whip his basketball shorts into a frenzy about. 1 of those bands down, 2,374,594 to go.
Leif Bearikson
If you thought Mexican Radio was a shitty way to start off an album, well Celtic Frost has a surprise dick punch waiting for you as soon as you walk out of that door. Mesmerize is a jumble of horrible, cringe worthy riffs and some laughable vocals that would make Jonathan Davis erect. The rest of the album is okay, I guess.
Christian
This is a terrible song by a terrible band. Nothing more and nothing less (but definitely nothing more).
Scrimm
The entire new In Flames album. [In case you missed it, here’s our review. -W.]
Jack Bauer
I need to listen to Gorguts now.
(Photo VIA)
