Summoning - FL Studio Metal

Upon first listen, one might reckon this band Summoning to be a joke, a parody of black metal with dismal use of keyboards and piss poor songwriting. The drums literally sound like triggered trash cans being beat on over and over again - they are, in fact, using drum machines - and the Fruity Loops keyboards symphonies stolen from Disney Studios' Frozen Sing-Along end up drowning out what little guitar work there is. All the albums, all the songs sound exactly the same, with some negligible variations here and there, and many of them are painfully overlong.

Now, there's nothing wrong with repetition in music - many black metal bands utilise this technique to great effect. But Summoning simply do NOT know how to write music. There's no interesting riffs, no atmosphere, no nothing - just the sound of programmed trash cans, MIDI guitars and Disney keyboards for an upwards of ten minutes at times, with nary a change in how the songs unfold. And that's okay. I mean... if this WAS a parody, it would be excusable.

But it's not. Protector and Silenius, the two clowns behind Summoning, think their music to be masterfully executed black, destined to challenging the Norwegian greats, even going to the lengths of publishing Facebook post after Facebook post - how kvlt! - to plug how great Summoning is - or to insult various members of the Norwegian black metal scene, such as Fenriz and Varg Vikernes whom Protector calls 'nazis' - to say nothing of the numerous Napalm Records press releases doing the same.

A joke upon black metal.