JOYLESS - UNLIMITED HATE

This is the first post in a series I'm going to call WORTH IT FOR WEIRDNESS: metal albums (all metal!!!) which are fucked in some way: either the production, the musical vision, the riffs, or whatever. Not something you'd listen to more than once, but enough to a) make you laugh or b) blow your mind. A mason-jar sideshow of metal freakishness. You can learn from their examples, although whether you're learning to imitate something or avoid it is basically up to you . . . and the voices.

This time: JOYLESS.

First thing: best cover ever.

Other First thing: the mix is basically bass and cymbals, with the occasional snare. Perhaps there is some guitars and drums back in the corner.

Second thing: the vocalist is a genius! Imagine William Shatner’s spoken-word poetry if Shatner had thrash training from Udo Dirkschneider. Plus add El Duce’s remarkable technique for putting emphasis on all the wrong syllables in a sentence.

Third : the arrangements! song one (INHERENT EMPTINESS) starts with an “evil laugh.” Then into blastbeats, then about 3 minutes of mid-‘80s mosh-part chugga-chugga riffing. Then more blastbeats, into . . . a blues jam? And then? They repeat the entire song two more times ? it’s over 13 minutes long.

Song two (YOUR CRYSTAL FRAGMENTS) is equally amazing: the guitars (now barely audiable because of 4 layers of overdubbing) play a mellow harmony like Metallica’s ORION. The bass player says, “Fuck you clowns, I’m going to play something totally dissonant and out of key.” And the drummer, not to be outdone, says, “Screw the lot of you, I’m going to play a funky little shuffle starting at 1:20 , because it’s 1996 and we just got the UK’s “Manchester Sound” here in Norway. Kids love the Manchester Sound!”

Also: there is a song called DIMENSIONS OF THE BLACKEST DARK.

I assume these dimensions are located inside the toilet pipes leading to the bowels of the enchanted forest. The toilet Immortal used during breaks on shooting the "Call of the Wintermoon" video. Fucking forlorn, man.

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