Sometimes you wish some bands would just shut the fuck up. Too often, poorly conceived black metal — in all its overblown, overtly serious ridiculousness — drives even major fans up the wall who try to bear it. Originality is frequently a concept more recent bands of the genre are eager to entertain. Instead, they seem to pride themselves on making a majority of their music a complete package of dull and listless clamor.
And so comes another sapped release from some spike-and-leather clad bozos. Actually, the Greek-based Dodsferd's already been at it for years, stringing together songs of seething, yet boring riffs that try to be as grim as possible. Unfortunately, the riffs bring yawns and their "evil" atmosphere wears thin, finally wearing the listener's patience.
Good black metal has the ability to conjure up the kind of unmitigated emotion seldom seen in underground music, but Dodsferd deters that emotion with flattened ideas that don't even attempt to aim for something better. To the band's credit, the lead singer, who goes by the nickname "Wrath," does belt out cringe-worthy screams and ghoulish agonizing cries that come with years of donning corpse-paint and 12-inch spikes. A pity, then, that the music behind him is a slab of uninteresting mud. Nevertheless, if you're willing to put yourself through 50 minutes of wearying noise (and what self-respecting black metal fan isn't these days, now that the genre has rapidly become such a joke?), then do yourself a big favor and give Dodsferd your hard-earned money. How the hell else is Wrath gonna be able to afford all that leather?
