Sargeist

This far down the proverbial musical road it’s hard to believe that there’s still a market for guys in corpse paint playing endless tremolo to the tune of demon wails. Judging by the sound of the recording as well as the "musicians” themselves, Sargeist hail from their mother’s basement, Finland; a frozen garden ripe with cases of seasonal affective disorder — the perfect audience. They’ve taken the word "cult” and placed it before "black metal” to describe their brand of sacrilege hackery. If this is their way of recruiting pre-pubescent trench coat enthusiasts into a legion of fans, the new prefix is probably doing a mighty fine job. Also worth mentioning is the bleeding eyed, thorn crowned, evil Jesus donning the cover just screaming teenage rebellion. Black arts this, Satan that, the record predictably ends up hellishly bland and tedious. Though they’re decent when it comes to constructing the songs themselves, their music is otherwise a complete joke. Sure, those burning churches and tabloid murders were amusing for a while, but the ’90s have been over for some time now and everyone is tired of mocking black metal. We get it. Your soul is tortured and evil. Next please.