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Satyricon: Volcano Black Metal Capitol Records, Moonfog Records October 25th, 2002
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Review
With the recent changes brought into the band's sound, it was only a matter of time before Satyricon really sat down to start meddling with their sound and experiment to create an album that, to put it simply, is really not that good. Volcano is the second album that the band decided to take into a new direction, but fifth full length in total, and while there are people out there who stand in awe of this release and call it underappreciated Black Metal, it lead to a very good question: Did the album put them to sleep quick enough that they thought this was one of the earlier releases? Sadly the question is both fair and unfair to ask here. Volcano is a rather bland and uninspiring album, clearly taking some rock elements into consideration with the music, which is fine and all since Black Metal is the most abundant thing on here. The reason it's so boring is that many of the songs on here just sound very tame and simple while following the same type of structure as far as vocals go. The only way the vocals will come off different on the album is if there are spoken words at some point right after the rather typical, uninthusiastic wails, such as on the first track, and far from the most overdrawn cut, "With Ravenous Hunger". Aside that, the recording quality is not all that great with the drums, having the bass kicks pretty low and sounding rather distant. Also, on the tracks "Angstridden" and "Mental Mercury", Satyricon for some reason thought it would be cool to throw in some synthesized, almost futuristic/robotic sounding female spoken words. This not only leaves you scratching your head out of confusion, but also leaving you rubbing your temples as this just adds to the growing list of things this release does to give you a migraine. If by the time of "Mental Mercury" you don't have one, the end of it surely will give you one due to the inclusion of what best guesses would say would be mercury exploding, but as if it came from an old Nintendo Entertainment System video game. Volcano does start to pick up some speed, both in quality and literally with music, with the track "Angstridden", which does sound heavier but still not all that impressive a track. The drumming on it is far better, and really stands out against the rather annoying guitars and the aforementioned female vocals, as well as to induce further pains for your current migraine. "Repined Bastard Nation" is another track to point out that has some good music in it, moreso then just the drums, but the bridge moments that consist of muffled drum kicks, simple guitar chords before strum slowly, and spoken word vocals, really kills it. "Fuel For Hatred" is really where the release shines. The single off the album sounds tight, has some complexity to it and simply sounds as if everyone involved really got into it and didn't half-ass the song during recording. The same can be said for the track "Possessed", but about a minute or two into that the song starts to just become drawn out, dull, and boring overall, enough to put you to sleep (which, by this point, did happen to the reviewer). If you happen to drop off, you don't miss much at all, but the ripped off guitar riff from the musical Phantom Of The Opera at the start of "Black Lava" should wake you up again. Satyricon had some outstanding Black Metal releases, but their new sound is far from inspiring, or even the slightest bit entertaining. If the group can concentrate on writing more material like "Fuel For Hatred" and not on the concept of giving a Hard Rock vibe to standard issue grade Black Metal, we may have something seriously kick ass at our hands. But, Volcano instead falls short and ends up being a sleeper album that uses the term literal, from the start of the album, all the way through to the fourteen plus minute "Black Lava" that actually sounds tighter and more enjoyable then half the shorter material on this release. With only one really good song worth checking out, maybe "Black Lava" as well, it's clear this is one of the most overrated releases in the band's career, as well as a bad sign if the group continues to write material like this one.
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