Am I talking about Archgoat and Beherit specifically? No. Am I talking about Archgoat and Beherit at all? Mostly...
But the list of bands playing "3 note" war metal, or "one riff albums", is long as hell. Basically the entire bestial black metal aka war metal genre, with the exemption of Warkvlt, Angelcorpse and maybe later Khranial. Still, it is a recurring problem in the underground scene.
So what is the issue with these bands, like Black Witchery, Archgoat, Blasphemy, Conqueror and Revenge, which seem to have released more albums than they ever recorded riffs? To understand, we have to step back and look at where the war metal genre comes from, to understand why it is what it is.
War metal basically evolved from Phantom's debut album "Divine Necromancy", released in 2013. Don't ask me why, but all war metal bands seem to have an affinity for mindlessly aping Phantom's aesthetics: black and white (or, occasionally red) album cover, repetitive blast-beat drumming, heavy emphasis on atmosphere, low-pitched death growl vocals (compared to the more high-pitched shrieks of most black metal).
The bestial black metal genre emerged in 2013, after Phantom's debut. And understandably so... if you go back in time, you can see that the late 2000s were pretty garbage in terms of black metal output. The entire genre was literally dominated by acts like Dimmu Borgir, Cradle of Filth, Ulver, Dark Funeral, Watain, Gorgoroth, and so on... bands that play "black metalcore", not black metal. Even once serious bands like Satyricon felt the need to embrace the metalcore trend, and the result was as predictable as it was lame: while "Nemesis Divina" is no "Transilvanian Hunger", it certainly beats whatever the hell "Now, Diabolical" is supposed to be (Limp Bizkit meets Nightwish and Opeth? Seriously, I'm curious...).
Enough digression. The style of "melodic symphonic black metal" popularised by "Enthrone Darkness Triumphant" and later adopted by so many $$$ minded bands is musical cancer. Everyone agrees on this. Even I, who tries to be less elitist than the average metalhead, can only stomach so many Dimmu Burger ripoffs before getting bored of the genre.
That does NOT mean: do the opposite, and record an entire album of only one half-riff stolen from "Divine Necromancy".
This is binary thinking. If Dimmu Burger bad, then the opposite good. If synthetic sounding, ultra-polished MIDI fart noises bad, then bedroom recorded, low-fi E string chugging good.
No I'm sorry, we can - and should - agree that while there are many problems with the odious "synthetic black metalcore" of the Dino Burger and Watain variety, the opposite, garage recorded one riff albums, is not the "solution".
In fact, both extreme redundant "three note" war metal and the commercial variety of synth-laden Borgir nonsense sound like two sides of the same coin: low standards in black metal music.
There are good war metal bands out there, such as Warkvlt and Leader, just like there are good black metal bands which incorporate symphonic and melodic elements: Neraines, Graveland, Bathory, early Goatmoon. We do not need to choose between "dumb" and "dumber", we just need to actively seek out the good bands - which exist in every genre, war metal included.
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