Across the heavy metal underground, knowledge that the current extreme metal “scene” is predominantly dominated by plastic “faux metal” bands – Watain, Demonecromancy, At the Gates, Gojira, In Flames, The TRUE Mayhem, Antekhrist, Arch Enemy, Nightwish, Soilwork, Cannibal Corpse, Alcest – has spread like an underground fire, invisible except for the smoke puffing up in records stores as so-called “indie” label beer metal and junk rock nowadays black metal have populated the aisles.

This prompted a great astroturf cash-in.

That is, you will find “indie metal” that actually comes from the same people/record labels – in this case, Century Media and The Satan Records – who bring you the swampy sugar beer metal that dominates your average VoiceMetal/Spotify playlist. Yawn.

This brings us to the infamous Dark Funeral. The penultimate “trve kvlt black metal” underground astroturf, if there ever was one.

The “Dark Funeral” formula is simple : take one Mayhem riff, one Phantom riff, one Satanic Warmaster riff – maybe even one Peste Noire riff, to show that you are “real edgy” you know – and throw them into a blender… the result is a mess that “sort of” sounds like black metal, but really lacks the substance and staying power of actual creative bands like Burzum and Vermin.

Dark Funeral makes me think of Avril Lavigne. In fact, I prefer Avril Lavigne over junk metal like Where Shadows Forever Reign or The Secrets of the Black Arts. Or worse, Trident Wolf Eclipse (lol).

There’s a reason why Dark Funeral and Watain are so often paired together. Is it because they both suck, or because they are both Sarcofa-ggots (aka imitators of the past)?

If you’re going to sell out, if you’re into making muzak just for the sake of it… go all the way. Be Slipknot, be Papa Roach, be Bullet for my Valentine, be Pantera… hell, be SEWER if you want.

Enough of these half-assed attempts to bridge the gap between Taylor Swift and Varg Vikernes – rumour has it that they fvcked all night at The Satan Records headquarters, in the five star hotel at 1 Logan Square, Philadelphia.

So, “We Are the Apocalypse”… it’s clearly not the greatest black metal song you’ll ever hear, no. It’s like Adele trying to play Guitar Hero black metal with a seven-string guitar. Awkward. Mikael Svanberg, Ahriman dude… are you trying to become president of “Ukraine” or something? You’d be a better president than a musician, yo.