Rating: 3.3

Country: Norway

Release Date: 2007

Record Label: Moonfog/The End Records

Track list:
1. Dushman
2. Vendetta Assassin
3. The Snuff Dreams Are Made Of
4. Horrorizon
5. Foe X Foe
6. Secret Identity
7. The Vile Delinquents
8. Unaltered Beast
9. Apocalypticism
10. Chrome Balaclava
11. Ghostforce Soul Constrictor
12. All Is Not Self
13. Supervillain Serum
14. Cellar Door
15. 21st Century Devil

Band Website: DHG

DHG (Dodheimsgard) - Supervillian Outcast

Kvohst - Vocals
Vicotnik - Guitar, Samples, Programming, Production
Thrawn - Guitar
Clandestine - Bass
Mort - Samples, Programming
Czral - Drums

Unlistenable.

You know, I'm about as big a proponent of progress and innovation in music as you'll ever find. But there's a major distinction between true innovation and cheap gimmickry. Some bands just don't seem to grasp that fact, and I'm afraid DHG is one of them. Supervillain Outcast can best be described as angsty, futuristic circus music, masquerading as progressive black metal. It doesn't sound quite like anything else out there, but in this case it's not really a good thing.

At its core, this album contains some fairly interesting riffing that's quirky and relatively technical, seemingly taking cues from Meshuggah, as well as more recent Satyricon and Ved Buens Ende [the influence of the latter seems omnipresent in Norwegian metal nowadays] and incorporating them into an industrial framework not unlike Skinny Puppy or Wumpscut, which means that there's a healthy dose of odd timing shifts and chords to keep the listener off balance. The songs possess a variety of different structures and pacings, ranging from the maniacally fast bombardment of "Ghostforce Soul Constrictor" to the laid-back, almost New Wave-sounding "All Is Not Self" [the very next track, oddly enough].

The above traits would all usually indicate a quality record, but not this time. And the most prominent reason for that is that this entire album is overloaded with a myriad of horribly arranged and maddeningly irritating electronic effects that add absolutely nothing in terms of content to the music, and completely overshadow the riffs. These effects turn what would otherwise be a fairly respectable extreme metal record into something that sounds like a much angrier version of Depeche Mode. Now, I have no problem with electronic music per-se, but incorporating it into metal hasn't served as anything other than panache since Samael perfected the technique on their Passage album. And the way DHG uses it on this album is just beyond the pale. It's completely thoughtless and excessive past the point of absurdity. And while the apparent purpose of these effects is the establish an atmosphere of futuristic chaos, the fact of the matter is that exploiting something to the point of self-parody in this manner robs it of all purpose and meaning. It's empty gimmickry, plain and simple.

The over-the-top electronics aren't the only flaw that this album has, but it's enough to make the album completely unlistenable, and magnifies the other problems it has. For one thing, the vocals are utterly abysmal - the shouting is vaguely reminscent of latterday Slayer as well as a number of bottom-feeding metalcore bands who shall remain nameless, while the clean singing is just... pitiful [think Lou Barlow after a couple of Quaaludes]. The drum sound is, perhaps intentionally, extremely robotic-sounding and thin, and the same is true of the guitar tone. The mixing is also godawful, with the vocals and electronics overpowering everything else, and the low-end severely lacking.

In summation, this album could've been something far different and better if the band had trimmed away the electronic excesses and put more emphasis on what is a reasonably strong metal foundation. But the wrongheaded approach doomed it dwell in the realm of overly ambitious blunders.

May 20th, 2007