Satyricon ‎"Satyricon" CD

It's important to renounce to all the preconceptions about how this album should be like, about how black metal should sound like, about how Satyricon should play. This is still Satyricon, but things change, they evolve, the grow up. This is indeed different from their previous albums, just as happened with tones of other bands that carved the milestones of metal music but didn’t want to stick to the standards anymore and tried to create something new. Things change and it’s not always a bad thing; if this wasn’t true, we would still be listening to hairy and stinky men hitting a rock with their clubs.
It would be a pity to miss this album just because there are no blastbeats, no tremolo riffs, no lyrics about trolls pooping on a dark ruin of a grim castle in a misty forest, just because it’s “not standard, not trv cvlt!”. Would we like to get “Another shadowthrone” or “Even darker medieval times”? I mean, those were superb albums I loved, but there would be no point in playing exactly the same things for decades.
Let’s jump to the album. This was a total surprise to me. I thought it would be more in line with their three previous albums, I wasn’t expecting anything special, anything new. Since I got the cd, I couldn’t stop listening to it. Every single song perfectly conveys strong emotions of melancholy, decay, grimness, the whole album displays a very deep and sincere array of feelings, ranging from rage to sadness, from sorrow to hope. You just have to listen to it. I hate labels, but if you forced me to assign this work to a genre, I’d say: “damn, it’s pure black metal!”. Even in those mellow moments of relief and hope like “Phoenix” and “Natt”.
I feel that the songs are very mature and well composed; every sound seems to be at the right place and strikes the chords of emotions with real feelings. Every song is remarkable in some peculiar way. “Tro og kraft” offers some very intense and touching arpeggios in the verses, while “Our world, it rumbles tonight” is very wicked and decadent and perfectly fits the vision of a falling world. If you close your eyes while listening to the outro (“Natt”) you almost can sense the scent of moss in the night breeze and see some naked nymphs enjoying a bath in a lake. I was really surprised by the contrast between the harsh industrial verse and the catchy, rock ’n’ roll chorus in “Nekrohaven”.
I could speak about every single song and tell you how I really enjoyed all of them, but I think it’s not the point of a review. I’ll mention only one more song: “Phoenix”. I understand why most of the people feel plain hate and disdain for this. It may sound like some goth rock ballad and it has clean vocals and a catchy chorus... there’s not even Satyr in there. But... I won’t hate something just because I have to. This song is good indeed, interesting sound, great mood. I've heard a lot of people saying it sounds like HIM; I think that only a deaf person or a bad comedian that repeats someone else’s jokes could have uttered a sentence like that.
Another thing I have to mention is the sound and the production of this work. I’ve heard people complaining and laughing at the analogue recording because it was pretentious and pointless. Well, try and listen the cd (or even better, the vinyl) on some good hi-fi speakers instead of downloading a shitty mp3 on a shitty smartphone. Nothing different, you might say, nothing special; true, I’d reply, but now go and compare it to the sound of the guitars on “The age of Nero” or “Now, diabolical”. Here it all feels a little more warm and authentic to me.
Last, but not least, the few downsides of this work. It’s a minimalistic album, no problem with that, it still manages to feel complete and I love it; but I find that the lyrics are a little bit too simple. Another thing it’s the drums; they’re ok, they properly fit the style of the songs, but I can’t stop myself from asking: “is this really Frost?”; I’d expect something more from him, I feel that his performance is not enough, you don’t have to play banally when you play minimalistic songs. Finally, the bonus songs; anyone would like to hear BONUS songs, not just a few pointless remixes; what’s their purpose? I feel that they had to fill the digipack in some way.
So, this is an album that I sincerely recommend, there's some excellent music with authentic feelings. This is Satyricon's best work since "Nemesis divina". Oh, and this album's cover artwork is superb.

Sample:

Official promo video: