Day 7: Destroyer 666 – Phoenix Rising

When I was a teenager, I loved metal. Especially the modern (perhaps you might say nü) variety. The more abrasive, the better. I liked putting it on and dying my hair black and jumping around throwing my limbs at other angry children. Then I turned twenty and all of my angst and indignation turned inside out, and I fell in love with mopey, emotional music, and I’ve never looked back except to occasionally revel in the marvelous technicality of so much music that I used to love.

So this morning the RNG gave me its results, and I wasn’t too perturbed. I’ve listened to enough black metal before to be pretty inured to it. It’s honestly a lot gentler than a lot of the stuff I used to listen to, so I used to think it was kind of boring.

Destroyer 666 managed to get my blood pumping though. It’s pretty good stuff, for what it is. It’s melodically engaging, with quality vocals and athletic drumming. The vocals are low and guttural, sounding supernatural, while the guitars are all over the place. They exchange wild, careening leads that duck and weave around each other, and are pretty much always doing something texturally or melodically interesting. And even though outside of this project I would have turned it off within a minute, I still don’t really have any complaints about listening to it all day. In fact, I enjoyed it. I was sad to turn off yesterday’s Serge, but this cushioned the blow. It was a pleasant throwback to a musical era that was very important in my life.

Be that as it may, it’s still something that totally fails to connect with me. Which is interesting to me, because this whole genre used to be the best thing I knew. I remember all sorts of moments from my teen years similar to the time I first saw The Strokes on MTV2. They were playing Last Night relentlessly and it just infuriated me. I thought it was some of the lamest, lousiest, dickless shit I’d ever had penetrate my ears, and then I put Slipknot back on, or something.

It’s baffling to see how sharply my tastes can change in four or five years. Listening to Destroyer 666 has been a lot like going back and watching cartoons I used to like, or being reunited with the people I was friends with at 16.  You can see, or at least guess, what you used to like about them, and you can identify that they have likable qualities, but those qualities have grown less important to you over the years where others have arisen in their stead.

To belabor the analogy, I really do feel like I’m much older, and meeting an old high school friend or something and going out for a night of drinking like bachelors. Just tearing it up. The music is getting me psyched. I’m nodding more vigorously than you would to answer a question in the affirmative. But in the morning, I’ll wake up and go back to my taste, the taste I’ve grown into and developed over the years, and we’ll exchange an awkward goodbye at the airport, promising to keep in touch even though we both know we never will.

Or maybe tomorrow I’ll pull another black metal album. Who the hell knows.

In researching this album earlier today, I came across this collection of reviews collected from around the internet, and it contained some interesting lines. Namely, though, this:

The vocal performance is highly unique and falls more on the black metal side of the equation. They are Warslut. I suppose I could call them “sinister” and “growling” but really…they are 100% Warslut. His lyrics are just as good, too. And when they are this good I must quote them in my review.

“I think I’m a wolf!
Then again,
I’m fuckin’ cray-zeh!”

“I think I’m a wolf!
“I think what I need is a bitch,
Don’t you?!”

“I think I’m a wolf!

Hell yeah, brother. I think you deserve one. *clap, clap* Come here, bitches…have sex with KK Warslut.

Yeah. So if you think that sounds good, give this album a whirl.