IXXI - IXXI

Rating: 4.8

Country: Sweden

Release Date: 2007

Track list:
1. Intro   01:24
2. Rewards of Ignorant Wrath   04:30
3. The Holy Message of Aum   04:29
4. The End of Degenerations   04:17
5. Ancient Spirits Are   03:24
6. Investigating the Horrific   03:18
7. Devil's Mass-Control   04:41
8. Sectarian Trance   09:36

Total playing time   35:39

Band Website: IXXI

IXXI - IXXI

Totalscorn - Vocals
Acerbus - Guitar
Nattdal - Guitar
Avsky - Bass
Selin - Drums
Devo - Electronics

Conceding to the recent trend of Swedish black metal supergroups, the various black metal fellows of IXXI have put their black metal heads together, only to discharge from their collective black metal loins an album that can be best described as vexingly un-black metal. What does it sound like, then? Let's just say it's "Fucking Hostile."

If you woke up this morning hoping to at least make it through the day without reading a Pantera reference, I apologize.

Indeed, there's more groove in this album than anything frosty or grim, with lots of chugging swagger and greasy pinch harmonics springing out from behind every corner. "But wait!" you cry; "... this is an occult blackened thrash band! The Internet told me so!" Well, hypothetical protester, this is actually about as much of a thrash album as Sepultura's Chaos A.D. -- you know, that lame groove metal whipping-boy that's more useful as a namedrop than as an album. Yeah, after skipping the symphonic intro, it's nothing but downtuned, staccato Panteraisms from here to yonder, the only thing anchoring the album anywhere near black metal's most ambiguous edges being the occasional melodic lead or cluster of Mayhemic discordance. The only exception to this is the song "Sectarian Trance", a lugubrious, nearly ten minute electronic track that, strangely enough, I don't hate. Its guidance of insistently chugging power chords proves rather unnecessary, but does little to change the fact this is the most musically interesting song on the album.

The vocalist is for the most part excellent, specializing in a bilious Abbath-esque gurgle. I include the disclaimer "for the most part" because he sometimes attempts clean vocals, and well, the regrettable warbling of vocalists like this is the reason singing in black metal is such a taboo in the first place. In all fairness, he mostly sticks to a not-too-annoying spoken word style, but when he genuinely tries to sing in the song "Investigating the Horrific," I begin to fully relate to the song title; nasal at all the wrong moments, trilling and rolling his Rs without the range to justify such acrobatic pretense, it's just awful. "Nothing, I don't know what this is" is how I found myself responding when someone asked me what was playing. Please, vocalists: save everyone some embarrassment and know your limits.

The vulgarity is of such grotesque excess in IXXI's lyrics, they often come across as sophomoric rather than tough or righteously angry. Allow me an analogy: at the time of writing this, I have a preteen half-brother who's just beginning to learn how to be crass to appear "cool." However, because something in his undeveloped giraffe brain associates more with better, he'll occasionally say something like this to one of his friends: "hey fucker, can you get me some fucking iced tea while I put in motherfucking Halo 3? I'm shitass fucking nigger thirsty." Clearly, there's a distinct line between sounding vulgar and sounding like my idiot half-brother; IXXI cross that line more often than a band of grown men should. It's a shame, too, because 9/11 -- IXXI's predominant lyrical theme -- is still ripe for mockery here in the states. Then again, we're talking about the country that has to dry its collective tears on miniature novelty flags every time the human race rids itself of a few white yuppies, so offending Americans with one's lyrics is no notable achievement anyway.

Oh no, I'm not done with the lyrics, not by a long shot. I'll go ahead and allow this gem to speak for itself: "In your face, fuck you! / you are the problem / we're the fucking solution / ... armageddon's motherfucking looming / in your Christian nature to fucking die." I facepalmed so hard I died. An angry ghost is typing this. Now, it is a popular notion within metal that those who bemoan poor lyrics have superficial expectations, and that such a criticism undermines the importance of the music. There is some truth to this sentiment, but like it or not, when a band writes obtrusively poor lyrics and gets some guy to groan them in a comprehensible manner so that I'm burdened with having to hear them every time I listen to the band, they become criteria of my enjoyment of the music. Bad lyrics do matter in music, and if you disagree, you'd better not complain if you ever get a mouthful of razor blade when biting into an apple; afterall, it's the taste of the apple that matters, right?

It's frustrating: I hear what IXXI are trying to do, and furthermore feel each of their fumbles, sort of like watching someone who's so bad at public speaking it makes you embarrassed. Like their Swedish peers Lifelover [review], they're attempting incorporate the aesthetics of black metal into an accessible modern rock format, and I can appreciate such deviance in theory, but the fact is, they lack the finesse and grasp of tasteful aesthetics to take the concept beyond goofy novelty. Even so, if you can find it in you to look past the contrived sampling and acidically painful vox, IXXI can be stupid, groovy fun, so those with extensive lists of "guilty pleasure" bands might appreciate this. Otherwise, prepare to cringe.

July 5th, 2008