The same thoughts rise when I hear a “Viking Black Metal” band: what have the shrieking vocals to do with Viking warriors? And what about the corpsepaint? These elements mix as well with Norse mythology as with Buck Rogers science fiction. No really I cannot find the connection between electric guitars, high pitched screams and stage paint with traditional Scandinavian folk music. To be honest, the Aesir mythology themes in this Sykdom album are just present in the cover artwork (Thor’s hammer on front, Odin with his wolves and crows on the back). Musically we have 90’s so called Black Metal, with horrible weak shrieks instead of evil vocals, slow guitar riffs with a fuzzy distortion, vague melodies and among the simples keyboard uses you can imagine. Try to figure one riff and think that a single note is played over it, then another note comes in when the riff is repeated, that’s it. You get a dozen key strokes in a whole song (and they average 8-9 m minutes each!!). I am now recognizing some of the lyrics, despite the vocals have the same range of a midget with sore throat (hey, do you have that Herzog movie in mind: “Even Dwarves…”? Hmm, well probably those vocals were way more brutal), and guess what? They’re talking about SATAN!! There is a mjollnir on the cover and these guys are singing about a character of Hebrew mythoi! Whatever, I am just trying to find words to say that this album sucks. The keyboard use is worse than in a 80’s videogame, the guitar riffs have a faint melody and are repeated over and over with these great midget vocals on top. The melodies themselves also sometimes repeat from song to song with minimal variation. As a concept it sounds very weak, but as a Black Metal album it sounds totally awkward. Raises the same emotions as bad summer mix disco music. Too many electronics for my tastes, and even more so for dealing with historical and mythological themes. Useless. Ah even from my incomplete packaging I could understand the layout is sloppy as well, some of the runes are indistinct and blurred by wrong resolution, plus the spaces and lines are scattered without aim in the booklet. There is really little you could save here.

 

Tracks (4): 1 - I am God 2 - Fucking War 3 - What Lies Beneath... 4 - Hekseri