bobnomaamrooney said

[orig][quote]

Easily the worst thing about this band and contemporaries such as Krallice is that the genre they're aping is so reliant on atmosphere and context that it's really apparent when inauthentic bands play what they think of as black metal. In that respect these interlopers have no more artistic merit than, say, Eyes of Noctum.

Or as I posted on Krallice after last year's show at Great Scott, band of their ilk's aimless noodling rings as hollow as any USBM band fabricating a pagan heritage to sing about (does Krallice get double points for throwing a Mjölnir into their logo?). In Krallice's case the music isn't connected to anything, it simply exists as shred records; for Liturgy the context is the mile wide and inch deep concept of North American rebirth or something having to do with Aaron Copeland compositions. That's arguably more pathetic an excuse for co-opting black metal than Krallice's shredding because it presents a whitewashed and childish view of North American history as its atmospheric thrust.

It's not even a question of pastoral vs. urban black metal, there are a number of bands who capably write black metal that reflect their urban experiences. These "hipster" black metal bands seem unwilling to do so, whether it's a lack of knowledge beyond second-wave Norwegian bands or willful adherence to a narrow spectrum of influences I'm not sure. And it's a shame because you can make incredible black metal records with an urban context. I don't think any band does this better than Antaeus, Listening De Principii Evangelikum you can hear the crushing density and alienation of Paris' banlieues in everything from the wall of sound drumming and guitars to the terse almost exclusively monosyllabic lyrics MkM grunts in short bursts.