Myrkur - M

Well I fucked up. I did something I never do - I got excited for an album. Well, it was only for about an hour before I listened to the thing, but it still hurt. I should have known better, after all: an unknown artist with zero underground traction immediately gets signed to Relapse? It has marketing scam written all over it. Plus it showed up in my fucking Facebook newsfeed, advertised as being 'for those who like Darkthrone'. Ugh, I feel filthy. In my defense, I only really got hyped because I saw My Lord and Saviour Krystoffer Rygg (aka Garm of Ulver) was producing. Unfortunately, Nattens Madrigal this most certainly is NOT.

OMG IT'S A GUUUUURL. Look, I don't really give a shit either way, but the idea of a one-woman black metal project is pretty interesting, one must admit. I'm just gutted to give this album a bad review, especially since one of my favorite people ever is involved in the project, but the truth is it's just so. fucking. boring. Describing it as 'a girl sings prettily over some second-rate Darkthrone riffs' doesn't really do it justice; that sounds like it would half-way interesting. This is not. For one, there's pretty much one real riff on this album, at the beginning of 'Mordet', and while it did manage to grab my attention for a second, the song peters out after about a minute into a plodding mess, and then ruins itself with a god-awful fadeout. What the album lacks, I think, is dynamics; all the songs are mid-volume, mid-paced, with no really discernible structure or flow, and the whole thing just ends up being painfully dull. There are some screamed vocals present here as well, and they don't sound bad, though I'm inclined to thing that's because of the production rather than the performance (to be fair, that might be me being sexist). In the end, I was left feeling empty and disappointed. The whole thing just reeks of marketing gimmick.

Also, it's pretty embarrassing when the new Cradle of Filth album incorporates female vocals into black metal better than you do.

2 Relapse marketing scams out of 5.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go wash my ears out with some Darkthrone.