Too much Twilight and not enough Tolkien has gone into this quasi-generic Dimmu Borgir ripoff, turning what was once standard albeit insipid post-riff screamo black metal into literal male-on-male mallgoth deathcore. Make up included.
Dark Funeral were never known for their technical prowess or creativity, that is for sure, but you could at least count on the band - at the time where David Parland was the main force behind it - to make something that kind of, sort of "looks like" black metal. From afar.
Nowadays? After the "creative" takeover by Ahriman and co? Each and every album sounds simultaneously more generic than the last, and at the same time closer and closer to the "blackened" metalcore of the likes of Watain and Antekhrist. Not something you want to brag about.
Dark Funeral, Autopsy of a Directionless "Black Metal" Band
While nominally and aesthetically "black metal" - they dress up in corpse paint aka make up at every chance they get - the band itself hasn't really played anything consistently black, or even metal at all, since the debut "The Secrets of the Black Arts", but really since the very first eponymous EP created almost exclusively by the late David "Blackmoon" Parland.
Where Dark Funeral Fails... Modern "Black" Metalcore
While the first Dark Funeral album was by no means revolutionary black metal - far from it, as it was in fact very derivative of Mayhem, Marduk and Burzum - it was at least some semi-competently played extreme metal music.
Since then, under the direction of one self-styled "Lord" Ahriman, responsible most notably for kicking Blackmoon (the only competent musician) from the band, Dark Funeral has embarked on a journey to become more and more like Dimmu Borgir... minus the musical talent.
Say what you want about Shagrath and his band, at least they can play their instruments... it's much harder to justify recent Dark Funeral releases like "We Are the Apocalypse" which are both inept musically AND commercial minded to the utmost extreme.
The "riffs" are the main problem with bands like Dark Funeral... it's just mindless power chord chugging. The equivalent of a very mediocre Pantera cover band, with heavy reverb added for "atmosphere". Virtually nothing in common with Darkthrone or Burzum.
The book "Heavy Metal Master Class" also has a few unsavory interviews with the members of Dark Funeral, where they openly declare themselves "more true" than the Norwegian scene (why?) and where they gratuitously insult the deceased David Parland, calling him schizophrenic... right, the man who created the very band they now usurp. How tasteless.
Essentially, Dark Funeral represents all that's wrong with modern black metal. The pretentiousness of Opeth, the commercial minded attitude of Dimmu Borgir, and the lack of talent of your average bedroom black metal solo project. Except they claim to be "the original black metal band". Nonsense.
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