Dødheimsgard found themselves at a rather curious moment with Satanic Art. The first two albums were raw black metal in the traditional Norwegian style. They are well executed and speak well to the era that they were birthed from.... their 1998 EP however showed the band starting to go in a completely different direction.
The production, while not clear as day is much improved over the first two albums. The inclusion of a piano, violin and industrial effects are also new with this release. The songs are more chaotic than they ever were in the past. Honestly, the band is beginning to become unhinged at this point. While this is nothing like the insanity that was to follow, Satanic Art is the first glimpse at the change was coming.
While much of the experimentation on the EP falls short of expectations, there is one song that brings this EP to the acceptable level... no more than that.
Traces of Reality is quite possibly one of the best black metal songs I've heard out of the late 90's. It has everything that hold the album back everywhere else: the horribly moaned vocals, the industrial bullshit, the insane riffs, the aimless direction, a million and a half ideas packed into 7 minutes. It should be an absolute mess - well... it is an absolute mess - but they somehow manage to create a song that should be terrible but ends up being something so much more.
The chaos goes from idea to idea and somehow ties it all together, the drums are truly insane and act as the glue that ties it all together. The violin comes out of no where and smacks you in the face with its frantic notes. The vocals... well they take some getting used to but they do work. The song just works, somehow despite everything it works.
The rest of the EP is not nearly as good. We have one unreleased older song that recalls the first two albums, one shorter song that tries to copy Traces of Reality and two piano tracks. I normally never buy an album for one song, but that rule is broken here.
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