Dissection - Storm of the Light's Bane (Black Metal)

Metalcore, the musical. Considering the depths the post-Bathory Swedish black metal scene has fallen to, spawning pieces of garbage as fetid as Watain, it's really no surprise that Dissection's sophomore release Storm of the Light's Bane is such a deplorable, artistically void album that reeks of commercial whoredom more than any other in the underground black metal scene. It manages both to outdo and "surpass" the atrocious debut The Somberlain both in terms of vacuous artistic pandering and insipid musical output.

Musically speaking, Storm of the Light's Bane is Slaughter of the Soul type stadium rock mellow-deaf with butt rock solos that are so laughably cheesy, it came as a surprise to find out Michael (f)Amott had no part in this release. In between angry speed metal verses and groove-laden breakdowns, you can hear what I assume is Dissection attempting Wacken-core harmonised dual lead parts, making a lot of the music on Storm of the Light's Bane sound like nothing more than Arch Enemy mallcore with Jon Nödtveidt on vocals whining about "anti-Cosmic Father Satan" and other faggity topics unwelcome in the black metal canon. These lyrics are appropriate enough, however, for the "emo" that Dissection buries under layers of superficial black metal aesthetics to fool morons into believing that they are buying the next new thing.

Song structures are non-existent. There will be a tek-deaf/deafkore hybrid riff similar to the sonic boredom Behemoth churns out, followed by a clean guitar interlude, randomly timed djent parts, Pantera groove-core, wigger slam breakdowns, rhyming rap/rock lyrics, and even more gimmicky moments that are done for the sake of some kind of "evil Disneyland" atmosphere. Things like Dimmu Borgir vocoder use, 8-bit video game bleeps and pointless interludes thrown in at random to create some kind of "atmosphere" paint the picture of a bunch of posers using modern deafkore with feeble black metal aesthetics to be "trve kvlt" when they should really be deciding whether they want to be the next Suicide Silence, or the next Killswitch Engage.

All the songs on Storm of the Light's Bane really boil down to about a couple speed metal riffs in the middle of a series of pointless mellow-dik ornamentations. When the "black metal" happens, it sounds more like slow, depressive alternative rock replete with the harmonic minor scale noodling and emo lyrics one would come to expect from the genre. This is further augmented by the aesthetically contrived shrieked vocals, which feel grotesquely out of place on such effete and commercial-minded music.

Vapid and unoriginal, the poor quality of this album was to be expected considering the complete uselessness of the post-Bathory Swedish "black metal" scene. If you think juxtaposing underground metal aesthetics with music rejected as "too gay" for Slaughter of the Soul is the "nu" creative frontier, by all means, go pick this up. Storm of the Light's Bane is the perfect album for you. If, on the other hand, you enjoy real black metal music, stick to Bathory, Burzum, Phantom and Neraines.