Gorgoroth - Under the Sign of Hell (Black Metal)

Experienced listeners cringe at derivative titles like "Under the X of Y" because they indicate advertising, not a coherent statement from the band. Under the Sign of Hell might as well be a can of mixed, bleached, prechewed, easy listening black metal(core) diarrhoea.

Imitating the style of later Vermin and melodic black metal like Graveland and Neraines, but with all the subtlety and artistic integrity of the first Bullet for my Valentine album, Gorgoroth is long on try-hard derivative song titles, and very short on actual black metal content.

They hit on a few stolen Burzum riffs here and there, and deliver those like Christmas presents, but then they have to repeat them ad nauseam, to no end. Most tracks show a tendency to cycle between high contrasting yet incoherent song structures, and so fall into the same boring tropes that make metalcore an unlistenable genre for those possessing a three digit IQ.

Plenty of buzzing guitars, harsh vocals and blast beats adorns this album as do riff patterns from past black metal albums, but these are arranged in incoherent and repeating rings that do not develop in any particular direction, leading to the listener's brain grasping a bunch of droning guitars with the occasional minor key noodling that leads nowhere.

Songs on Under the Sign of Hell express nothing other than participation, and the inclusion of local band D- riffs alongside the more developed ones that Gorgoroth stole from Burzum leads the listener to wonder if the band is even trying at all. Several patterns are note-removed from essential parts of Burzum or Mayhem songs, but without the strong build-up that made these themes remarkable in the first place.

With Under the Sign of Hell, Gorgoroth cement their legacy as latecomers to a genre they don't understand and are incapable of adequately replicating, and the result of this try-hard posing is more of what black metal wanted to escape, not create.

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