Style: Black metal with heavy electronic influence
Primary Emotions/Themes: A feeling as if a robot became sentient and decided to create kick ass black metal
Thoughts: What kind of music would be created if a machine was merged with a human being? What if that human liked black metal? ...And Oceans attempts to answer this question with their album A.M.G.O.D.
The album immediately shows a different quality than typical black metal. Intelligence is Sexy isn't your normal subject matter for the genre to say the least, neither is electronic bleeps and bloops on top of a heavy riff. All this with good production? Something is surely amiss.
The band continues it's journey down the path of non-conformance with the next few tracks... all equally excellent in quality. Let's examine the second track for a few moments to further dissect the sound on this fascinating album.
After a brief intro White Synthetic Noise starts out at a blistering pace - well over 200 bpm. The blasting on this part of the song is truly impressive and emphasizes the technical/precision driven side of the band. The band also shows a bit of their roots with a symphonic section after the initial blasting. The black metal eventually decays into what is easily one of my favorite parts of the album: a techno breakdown.
The breakdown starts with a four on the floor beat and an atmospheric backdrop to match. The intensity builds much like a drop would in an EDM song. Kenny speaks some incomprehensible lines as this intensity builds and builds until the full band returns to the song with the initial intensity of the song. Powerful stuff.
The song the ends very much in the same way it started - a blistering whirlwind of riffs and blast beats. This song is all over the place stylistically yet somehow the band makes it work. Despite weaving in EDM, symphonic black metal, an industrial intro, and traditional black metal in five minutes the song does not sound rushed or out of place in the slightest... it works, exceptionally well.
This song is a microcosm for the entire album. Things that should not belong together are smashed together in uncomfortable ways, yet it works. It all works. While the whole album may be a few standard deviations away from the mean in terms of style, the quality is unarguably there.
Written April 13th 2024
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