Band's List Doom Black I'm In A Coffin One Final Action

Make no mistake, everything about I'm In A Coffin (IIAC) screams depression. Right from the band name, down to the details such as the album art (yes, depicting a man getting blindfolded and shot right through the heart), the album title, the song titles and song lyrics bleed depression and extreme sadness. And why am I not surprised that the label releasing this album is (aptly) called Mutilation Records.

To be honest, first listens and impressions were really bad. It was so bad that I could barely sit through even half of the first track. Album production is so low-fi and so raw that it instantly put the then-into-polished-production-quality-metal me off. But it wasn't until recently that I decided to give this album another chance that I realised how much of a masterpiece this album is (and probably will be in years to come).

Right from the opening track, I'm A Weapon Against Myself, until the closing track, Life Is My Coffin, the listener is exposed to the suicidal art of IIAC. Instead of using the usual crushing guitar riffs or keyboards to create the ambience, IIAC chooses a powerful bass that almost drowns out the fuzzy trem-picked guitar riffs in the background, backed by simple 4/4 programmed drum beats. Simple as it may seem, this method certainly works effectively for IIAC as their message is clearly sent across to the listener. Coupled with the vocals, which alternate between your usual high-pitched black metal shrieks and the cries of extreme agony, the mood is well-set, even without the lyrics in the picture yet. Lyrics written by IIAC are, as expected from a depressive/suicidal black metal band, extremely negative, ranging from purely negative emotions to the celebration of death and finally leaving the world of misery.

This album certainly achieves it's desired effect through the bleak outlook of life that the band provides to the listener, and is certainly infectious, whether it is conscious or not. The album has such a powerful effect that, believe it or not, manages to make a happy person feel depressed and a depressed person suicidal (hence the tag depressive/suicidal I suppose!). Simply listening to this album in a crowded area manages to build an invisible wall between the listener and the people all around, leaving the listener to slowly die (emotionally, psychologically, however you want to put it) in his own world.

Certainly deserving of more attention that it currently has. This is true agony, this is true pain, this is true depression. If you thought your "depressive" rock like Katatonia is as depressive as it gets, you have heard nothing until you get your hands on this album.

Recommended to all fans of depressive/suicidal black metal, low-fi black metal and raw black metal. Not recommended if you are feeling down.

I’m in a Coffin really are a strange band. Starting with the demo Buried Alive that received a universal backlashing and following it up with One Final Action that has strangely received universal acclaim all across the mark. I find this strange really, considering this isn’t much different from the Buried Alive demo. The same problems Buried Alive had have been carried over into One Final Action, yet for some reason people praise this to the skies. Why is this?

I guess it’s all about contrast really. When a band releases an utter putrid pile of faecal matter and then follow it up with something much better, people will automatically hype it to be something that it’s not, simply because the contrast between the two releases is so great. I’m not seeing that much of a difference from Buried Alive, the terrible vocals and lyrics, sub-par musicianship and generally underdeveloped attempt at the genre have been carried over. But compared to Buried Alive this shit is golden, it’s more developed and the band seems to handle their craft with a greater sense of confidence. At least I feel comfortable calling it depressive black metal now, just about anyway. The band seems to have a much better understanding of the genre, atmosphere created is thick and gloomy so the band seems to have fixed that problem they had with the first demo. It’s not as immature, a more controlled effort. Songs have much more flow, much heavier on the atmosphere. Although the vocals are still terrible, they don’t resort to crying and whining at any time which is good. They complement the music much more, allowing for a much stronger sense of emotion to come through, and thankfully not feeling incongruous with the musical backdrop.

Sure, it’s better than Buried Alive, but is it really that much better? I’m in a Coffin still suffer from major song writing problems, bass is too loud, completely obliterating all other instruments beneath them. Vocals in particular are pathetically bad, being a very strange wailing cry or something along those lines. I don’t really know how to describe them; they’re very strange along with the rest of this album. It doesn’t evoke a sense of depression or despair, but more a sense of teenage angst; with their melodramatic delivery and laughable lyrics did you really expect much else? The music as well is unintentionally hilarious, it tries so desperately to be dark and gloomy but overall just reeks of desperation. This kind of desperation turns most people off and I am no different, this band just isn’t comfortable doing this kind of thing. They try so hard to illicit an atmosphere of pure depression that the music just collapses in on itself. The atmosphere is thin, weak, although at times it can be suitably gloomy, whatever good moments the atmosphere invokes it’s buried in a sea of atmospherically bland and apathetic sludge. The whole album just gives off an aura of apathy, anhedonia and lack of interest, there’s no real effort put into the actual music, all the effort seems to have been placed into trying to illicit as powerful atmosphere as possible that they forgot how to actually write good music. A guitar, or more correctly the bass, trudges on at a lifeless pace; the riffs don’t really do anything, don’t go anywhere and don’t invoke an atmosphere. When you look at the music from an observational stand point, it comes increasingly difficult to see where all the praise is coming from.

So, One Final Action has bland song writing, ridiculous vocals and lyrics and a pathetically weak atmosphere yet for some reason people are digging this. I don’t really see how to be honest, I’m a huge fan of depressive black metal but this, this right here just hits a new low for me. It’s boring, cliché and ultimately uninteresting, ignore all the praise this album receives and get an actually good depressive black metal, like I don’t know, maybe Trist or someone. Anything has got to be better than this bass heavy drudge through apathetic depression. Way overrated, I’m in a Coffin are one of the most pathetic bands in the entire sub-genre, avoid this like the plague and invest your time in something worthwhile.