Khanate
Things Viral
Southern Lord
Slow, dark, depressing and bleak… these adjectives just about sum up the latest from Khanate. One of the selling points on the press sheet is that “Khanate has focused their attention on extreme dynamics and the space between notes on this album.” Um, yeah, OK. So, anyways, few people will admit that they enjoy this kind of music. It truly is a total mess of downtrodden emotions, dark imagery and scary nightmares.
The album is over an hour long, yet contains only four songs. A good portion of it is almost completely devoid of sound, per se, and the vocalist, when singing, sounds as if he’s being tortured. Seriously. I don’t know why people call this stuff “doom metal.” There really isn’t a whole lot that’s metal about Things Viral, other than the fact that the guitars are distorted (but they’re so sparse that it doesn’t even matter).
I’m kind of torn, because there are a lot of people in the metal community who champion these guys as innovators and kings, but I’m not completely sold. Don’t get me wrong, there’s something really appealing about Things Viral, and I recommend any metal fan give it a try just for the experience. But why all of the hoopla?
Southern Lord Records: http://www.southernlord.com/
