SATYRICON’S NERO: HE’S JUST A ROMAN
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 at 4:00pm by Anso DF
There are at least a couple reasons to watch that silly drug movie Spun, directed by Roxette video auteur Jonas Åkerlund. The first, and only defensible one, is to peep that dreamy Rob Halford in a brief role as a porn store clerk. But our panel of judges will also accept a) Mickey Rourke as a meth cook; b) the acting-challenged but bejugged Brittany Murphy; and, c) three seconds of Satyricon!
Yep, somewhere among Spun’s 100-minutes of narcoporn, we get a glimpse of Satyricon’s “Mother North” video on a scabby Patrick Fugit’s TV (with extra-weird dialogue overdubs here). Alas, Spun didn’t make Satyr and Frost mega-stars, but shit, a year later, they did manage to snag a major label deal for 2003’s Volcano followed by the polarizing Now, Diabolical in 2006. It seems the Norwegian duo had dared to expand – and occasionally abandon – the Black Metal palette, to a measure of outrage from (yawn) kvlt types. Well, that’s what I kept reading in magazines (and was told ad nauseum at last spring’s Behemoth/Dimmu Borgir show); as always, for but a few is the issue black or not black. For the rest of us, it’s good or not good. And Satyricon’s undercooked, perfunctory seventh album, The Age Of Nero, is totally not good.
As if to silence critics of Now, Diabolical’s black arena metal, Nero commences with blast beats, but in record time (ha, get it?) settles into a half-time slog. Gaze on the Satyr formula and despair: three or four words belched out, boring riff plays, a few more rasped words, repeat. For an hour. Running short of words? Then engage the riff-modifier for eight more measures of pointlessly similar fretting. This is the heart of Nero’s, um, downfall: redundancy and lack of dynamics and redundancy. But that’s not all.
Lyrically, where Satyr aims for misanthropy, it’s just macho silliness (“Commando,” “Die By My Hand”); only on “The Sign of the Trident” does he achieve a bit of menace. Though overstaying its welcome by at least three minutes, “Trident” happens to be one of the record’s musical highlights too, though that may be a product of following the album-justifying “My Skin Is Cold,” which is a goddamn lifesaver by Nero’s tiresome halfway mark. Sadly, this modest peak is swiftly negated by “Last Man Standing,” the album’s undisputed mega-turd.
It’s totally unfair to conjecture so let’s phrase this as a question: Is Satyricon interested in their own music anymore? Listening to Nero conjures images of two dudes witlessly jotting down a bunch of riff ideas to be parsed and purged at a later date. But that never happened, as each track abuts riff against similar riff, backed by thin, barely-present drums. That with more volume Nero sounds better is a good thing, but should bands opt to strand walls of reedy guitar high in the mix, then riffs must be MONSTER, not be beaten dead and dragged away by one. In this case, the guitars’ unfair workload is probably by default, since Satyr’s rasp barely squirts out from between two kick drums while bass (also, uh, by Satyr) is barely a faint pulse. There’s no hypnotic effect in the repetition (or should we charitably call it too-subtle variation?); even more rare are twinklings of beauty or punches of heavy impact (Are those farty tones supposed to be horns in “Den Siste?” Could your tempos drag any more? GET A PRODUCER!). When Nero marches, it does so with the intimidation factor of Homer Simpson’s Bear Patrol mob; where it races, we’re pretty much stuck with just crash cymbal and guitars imported from Thee Land Ov Straight 64th Notes. And geez, are you guys sure about a song title like “Die By My Hand,” which reminds listeners of both Coroner and Metallica? Can we be expected to concentrate on Satyricon when “Creeping Death” is cycling loudly through our brains? Why don’t you just call your record Where Do We Go Now?
If Satyricon is to be lauded for evolving past the confines of kvlt black metal, then we gotta wonder if it’s a good thing. As a flat, unadventurous, black metalism-free band, Satyricon is forced to fall back on songwriting and performance. Now seven albums deep, they’ve shed the genre’s touchstones (comically overblown orchestration, a vocalist who sounds really mad at you, screaming guitar ballast) to leave a skeletal black metal desert populated with bones and the occasional trachea. We like blood and meat here, folks.
(1 and a 1/2 horns out of five)
-ADF
[Anso Di Frances is a former music journalist who hurls wild accusations at the likes of Sharon Osbourne and Sammy Hagar in the daily metal news column Hipsters Out Of Metal!]
Good Review!
totally disagree. this is Satyricon’s best record since ‘Nemisis Divina’. great riffs, solid drumming.
amen uncle sherm!
this album rules…puts me in a trance
I’m gunna side with uncle sherm on this one.
I think this is by far the best work to come out of their new minimalistic, more hard rock influenced style. It’s got a great atmosphere and some pretty catchy moments too.
Here’s a review from another site that actually writes about metal not just silly time killing “news” stories
http://www.globaldomination.se/reviews/satyricon-the-age-of-nero
Satyricon haven’t played black metal since Nemesis Divinia. But hey, let’s not talk about the music, which has been minimalist and repetitive since Rebel Extraganza. Let’s not talk Kiss influences, but there is TEH BLASTBEET. Do you even know anything about Satyricon? Or Black Metal? Or heavy metal? I’m sorry, but you emo kids are starting to make me sick.
For once we agree. Shit is terrible. Even “Now, Diabolical” had 4 good tracks on it.
Volcano FTW.
The only part I really liked about this record is the part where I didn’t pay for it. I like to put my money towards bands that make good records, not bands that put out boring and useless records. They might be doing something different, but it’s not a ‘good’ different.
The only song I like is the single, Black Crow on a Tombstone. Imagine that.
So basically, just because it’s not generic black metal you dislike it? What a shitty review.
Have you even listened to the album more than once?
Lames defending this album: You love shitty things.
It’s quite clear this guy read all about Satyricon… on imdb. If he actually took an extra second to research the record he wouldn’t bash so much on Satyr who co-wrote the entire record with Snorre Ruch (spelling?) aka Thorns.
I’m curious as to whether or not the reviewer actually heard any other Satyricon besides the 3 second clip of Mother North to compare Nero too, or maybe he “overheard” some word of mouth “reviews” at another Dimmu Borgir (LOL) concert….
This is a poor attempt to tear apart a record that was obviously skimmed through maybe once by the reviewer. I get it you thought it was mediocre, so give it an average score, but a 3/10? Really?
The tempos drag? The whole record is recorded to a click and Frost’s (possibly even quantized) performance is spot on.
The production sucks? I wonder what you thought of Mayhem’s Ordo Ad Chao.. or Rebel Extravaganza for that matter.
Satyricon have a sound that is instantly recognizable not unlike bands such as Opeth, Meshuggah, or even Emperor/Ihsahn and that is fucking damn hard to achieve in this day of hundreds of copycat “deathcore” bands (or whatever the current genre label trend is). Seriously fuck genres, they only exist for the sake of penally-challenged reviewers to slam long-running, hard-working bands for not adhering to their perception of them.
This album is a 6.5/10 at worst, I give it an 8.5/10 personally (anyone actually interested in this record check out blabbermouth’s review)
I’m seriously disturbed by metalsucks for allowing such douchebaggetry from one of your own, Especially if the weak-minded reader who hasn’t heard this band yet won’t check them out due to this well-written but ultimately mentally (and metally)-challenged review.
Anso Di Frances & all the staff at Metalsucks should be put to sleep ! I give this album a 8.5/10 as well. Classy Metal is right 100% !!!!!!
So i think the overall conclusion of all the comments is one i totally relate to. Mr. D Frances, your review is so wildly different from all the other reviews i have read that i also doubt if you’ve listed to the record more than once.. This album is in my opinion not a masterpiece but it still did find its way into numerous website and personal top 10s & top 50s around the globe. It’s a very solid effort; probably their best one in this decade. I’m with Classy Metal saying that Satyricon should be lauded for their unique style which is always instantly recognizable. The production is thundering and utterly dark at the same time.”Get a producer”? That comment is laughable as not matter how much controversy they yield among metalheads, they’ve been praised by so many just for the production of this album. And again, who has a better production in black metal land?
The age of Nero is a solid 8 out of 10. It doesn’t bring the world to kneel (get the pun reviewer? probably not which is exactly what i mean) but it deserves a serious review.
i love this album and if you are like me and have a good sence of humor with metal,check out the music video for Black Crow On A Tombstone….its funny as fuck with satyr in sunglasses from the 80’s