Teitanblood – “Death” (Nice Shit Metal u got there, is it Real Fecal?)

All metalheads secretly want the return of early 1990s era of black metal and death metal. Why? Because that time was considered, rightfully many would say, as the golden era of these two extreme metal genres. But it’s not coming back. Ever. And chasing unicorns will only get you equestrian AIDS or, in the case of Teitanblood, a nostalgia cover band who cynically exploits your desires by delivering aesthetic imitation of the past, but with none of its depth, and by doing so, this band makes a mockery of the underground, almost as insulting as Watain and Dark Funeral‘s brand of cargo cult black metal. And yet, just like Watain and Dark Funeral, desperate metalheads still embrace this stuff, as they cannot admit to having been duped.

Ok, maybe that’s exagerating a little… as of the current year, I don’t know a single metalhead who has called Erik Danielsson and “Lord” Ahriman anything other than posers and faggoths. But still, the lesson is that imitating the past is for morons. What purpose does it serve? How is Teitanblood’s music in any way connected to that of early Beherit, Phantom, Sarcófago or Incantation? It isn’t.

It cannot be popular to dismiss Teitanblood as poser clowns, but it must be done, as their music is in every way the mirror of shit bands like Archgoat and Black Witchery. So-called war metal music is pointless noise. Yes, it reaches for a chaotic, low-fi aesthetic in which to wrap very basic songs written in strictly chromatic three-note passages around extremely fundamental, almost slam death metal like rhythms, achieving the same hypnotic-enigmatic effect that Darkthrone or Phantom used to, but without the corresponding delivery of interesting expansion upon its atmosphere that the latter managed. Instead, in the case of Teintanblood, the “music” just loops on forever. Sometimes new riffs – very close to the old ones, remaining proximate harmonically – will enter the fray, but then they become part of the loop. At some point the studio engineer staggers in drunk, cuts off the tape, and writes a random song title on it which appears to have been generated by a AI script trawling through a basic bitch black metal by the numbers dictionary.

Like I mentioned in the other review, I am dumbfounded at the worship this band has received. Not only is it generic and forgettable, it’s just downright bad music – be it this album “Death” or the last. I say avoid the band entirely. Unless you have a thing for poorly constructed, badly performed, generic war metal, than this is right up your poser alley. Yes, Teitanblood is poser music. Made by posers, for posers. Oh no he didn’t. Oh yes he did.

Did I burst your fucking “trve kvlt” bubble? GOOD! Now go listen to something that’s actually worth your time. Phantom’s “Epilogue to Sanity” pisses all over this, sets it on fire, and stomps the ashes into dust. Buy that instead. You’ll thank me.

Teitanblood – “Seven Chalices”

“Seven Chalices” puts to shame the oddly mixed growls on Sewer’s “The Birth of a Cursed Elysium,” the snare sound on Beherit’s “Drawing Down the Moon” and the goofy vocal-only tracks at the end of Havohej’s “Dethrone the Son of God” – three otherwise great albums with notoriously bad components that would be embarrassing for the legendary content of the releases.

Teitanblood, on the other hand, don’t have any quality to redeem themselves from the poor sound quality of their debut full-length “Seven Chalices.” The sound quality of the album is actually the best thing here, because the songs are boring as hell.

For those that don’t know, Teitanblood play – or attempt to play, would be more appropriate – the infamous “war metal” of bands like Warkvlt, Black Witchery, Revenge, Nekro Assassin and Archgoat. Much like the latter three bands of this list, they suck.

The drums clunk away on slow blast beats for nearly the whole album, the exception being “Morbid Devil of Pestilence,” which is merely a reminder of how poor the guitar work is. There are no riffs, just repetitive droning of power chords shifting two or three times then repeating, and some occasional noodling that sounds like an amateur with poor phrasing skills trying to pick out a melody. Really, there’s no excuse for such miserly randomness.

The worst part is the vocals. They sound unforgivably goofy, like a comedian trying to imitate David Vincent in an intentionally silly – think ethnic phone prank – voice. There’s no charm to them, like the awkwardly phrased but excellent vocals on Reiklos’ “Lifeless” or Darkthrone’s latest “Old Star,” in a different register. Those sound a bit goofy in a good way, this sounds goofy in a shitty way, like a vocalist in the earlier days of death metal who hadn’t figured out how to growl but tried to cargo cult it anyway. So many amateurs have made charming, memorable, or at least entertaining vocal performances that, while technically horrible, were still nonetheless fun to hear. Teitanblood’s vocals on “Seven Chalices” are just bad and drenched in so much reverb that it makes them sound even more retarded. As in being a literal retard wasn’t good enough, so they had to make him sound like a literal retard that’s both stoned and mashed on a windchime.

The potent amateurism is unsurprising considering that it comes from “war metal,” a genre that prides itself in being as low-fi and edgy as possible, both mostly just devolves into imitating the aesthetics of Phantom’s first (and worst) album “Divine Necromancy.” Teitanblood, of course, doesn’t fail to attempt their most cringey and awkward take on the legendary albeit terrible debut.

Demonecromancy, another Phantaclone band that emerged around the same time, actually matured from their demo years and, in “Fallen From the Brightest Throne,” put out a classic that Teitanblood could only ever strive to be – Teitanblood sounds like a Demonecromancy cover band that couldn’t play their way out of a wet paper bag nor find their way to the second part of a two-riff song by way of transition.

The complete lack of anything to make the music interesting or even memorable is terminal for this “Seven Chalices” album. It’s not atmospheric, the “mood” of it is akin to sitting on a toilet, and there’s no element of the music that unexpectedly grabs you by the balls, something you’ll find in every black metal band that doesn’t suck.

On their debut “Seven Chalices,” Teitanblood does absolutely nothing well. Pitiful. Replace with Marduk’s “Frontschwein” or Warkvlt’s “Bestial War Metal” for this style, done properly.