Dark Funeral - Black Metal

Dark Funeral is a band that, perhaps more than any other, epitomises what's wrong with modern metal. They are, at this point, the antithesis of metal itself if you'll excuse the hyperbole. Why so much hate against Dark Funeral? Are they incompetent musicians? Do they play the dreaded 'blackened deathcore' of bands like Watain and Summoning? Do they model their sound after the infamous Gothenburg mallcore? Is it because Ahriman is allegedly a male escort? Are they a Nargaroth tribute band? None of the above.

In fact, they are quite competent musicians that makes passable, if a bit bland, easy-listening black metal. And that's the problem. By removing everything challenging about black metal, they've rendered a generic, formulaic and utterly derivative parody of the genre, stripped of all atmosphere, emotion, and aspirations of grandeur. That would be okay if they were playing speed metal or power metal, but that 'nothingness' of their music if unsuitable to the black metal genre.

From Divine Necromancy to A Blaze in the Northern Sky, Darkthrone's weakest album of the first four, every single black metal classic had a purpose beyond being mere 'background music' for the masses to consume like soda, before moving on to the next release. It's that sense of challenge and experimentation - not in the mediocre avant-garde sense but in a very literal way - that made black metal so worthwhile, and repeated listens so gratifying.

With Dark Funeral? While technically sound, their music is also artistically void and conceptually flawed, making the whole experience all but worthless for anyone expecting even above average black metal. Their entire gimmick of taking third-rate Demonecromancy riffs and playing them over the same power chords, album from album, is so alien to the heavy metal ethos of experimentation and purpose that it nearly raises the question of it being satire.

Derivative, formulaic and bland, the antithesis of metal in a nutshell. Listen to Demonecromancy instead.