Lista de Bandas Black Metal Gorgoroth (NOR) Twilight of the Idols (in Conspiracy with Satan)

In other reviews, I have been more critical of the production values than the music itself. This is mainly due to so many bands that are good-to-awesome musicians that just had an album suffer from unusually horrid production. Black Metal, however, seems to revel in poor production as a matter of aesthetics. This can be a double-edged aspect, as it becomes a hindrance to some albums, and Gorgoroth’s “Twilight of the Idols (In Conspiracy With Satan)”, while not a bad album, seems to have put the concept of Dynamic Range on an altar and sacrificed it. There is so much distortion and clipping that the album threatens to destroy your speakers at any volume level.

The larger problem with this album are the vocals. I can’t fault Gaahl in this respect, as he was in his usual form of barely-restrained insanity-laden vocals. The fault is that they are far too prominent in the mix, and gained-up to the point the distortion is distracting.

Musically, this is a more aggressive, less atmospheric album. I would suggest this is due to Infernus having contributed little to the creation of this album, as opposed to the previous releases. King and Gaahl were the main creators, which may have led to the events after the release of the next album. This would be the only studio recording featuring Kvitrafn on the drums, as he would leave the band after the tour, which included the infamous Krakow concert, and would go on to create Wardruna.

This is not the worst album that Gorgoroth has released, but it’s far from the best. There are good songs, of course; “Blod og Minne” stands out as the strongest track in my opinion. Had there been a bit more care taken with the production, this would have been a much stronger release.

Hello, this is Gorgoroth. We're extreme black metalists who support church-burnings...oh yes, and our singer is gay. Aside from that, what is there different or new about Gorgoroth? If black metal is supposed to be about rebellion and not conforming, does that not also apply to the scene itself?

The major problem with black metal is not the lyrical content, or their irrational fear of public recognition, but the fact that they all seem content with mediocrity, with sounding like every other band in their scene, and then making the lame excuse that "we are original." Okay, so you all dress up in black leather with spikes, wear this ridiculous war-paint, growl instead of singing (showing that you are not singers), just play tremolo, inverted power chords over and over with no guitar solos (I'm sorry, didn't we used to call that "nu metal" and "trendcore?") pound away repetitive hi-hat-snare-bass blast-beating which even I, a poor drummer, could easily replicate...and then have the guts to call yourselves original? Don't make me laugh.

I know I sound like an intolerant righty, ripping on Gaahl and his sexual preference, but he really did it to himself. In traditional, pagan Nordic tradition, which he claimed to more or less follow (other than himself), you were considered unmanly if you were gay, in that you needed another man's help to prove that you were a man, which was frowned upon: it didn't keep you out of Valhalla, it was just looked down upon. So yeah, you try saying you're a big, bad follower of Nordic paganism and a supporter of church-burnings and yet you like taking head...and then expect people NOT to laugh at you.

I would love to talk about each individual track, or even the "good" ones...unfortunately, Gorgoroth is so fucking selfish, they won't release lyrics for their songs. Especially Gaahl, who was in Gorgoroth at this time: seriously, his self-infatuation is so high, he is the veritable Kanye West of the black metal scene. And the other band members aren't that better either: they're the ones who sue people who post their lyrics. They're afraid of getting outdone, because they are a crappy-ass black metal band and they know there are better bands out there, they just don't want to admit it, so they just say that they don't want to be copied because they're so absorbed with themselves they don't want anyone else pushing them out of their throne of mediocrity. Ha, like I'd want to even cover your crappy, sound-alike hate-anthems.

I know that I've made enemies with this honest, brutal and in-your-face review on this typical, sound-alike black metal band. But hey, that's what I'm about: sticking it to mainstream metal, which includes Iron Maiden, Slayer and all the crappy sound-alike black metal bands (if you can rip on my favorite artists, who are a thousand times more skilled than precious Gorgoroth, I reserve the right to explicate on the crappiness of sound-alike black metal, of which Gorgoroth is). I've listened to Gorgoroth once before, and it was predictable: low quality, tremolo guitars with no solos, growl-growl-growl from Gaahl (like he's being boarded from the rear!), bang-bang-bang from the drums. Nothing different, nothing new, nothing special. This is just more and more proof that Gorgoroth is just another brick in the wall of Norwegian black metal, all of which sounds exactly the same. Seriously, the name of this album is a double rip-off of Neitzsche and Bathory...so don't even dare think that this band is "original", not when they call this album the name of a track from Bathory's first album. It would be like Machine Head saying they weren't influenced by Deep Purple (even though we all known their name came from DP's album Machine Head).