Rating: 6.2

Country: USA

Release Date: 2006

Record Label: Barbarian Wrath

Track list:
1. Absolute Overkill In Vengeance’s Name
2. Reduced To An Unidentifiable John Doe
3. John Doe
4. Justifed Homicide (Contemplating An Act Of Murder)
5. Let Everything Die…Slowly
6. Social Parastism
7. Revenge Killing Spree
8. Genocide And Misanthropy

Band Website: Tearstained

Tearstained - Homicidal Tendencies

Mikael - All Instruments

Well this is a bit disappointing. Up to this point, I was of the opinion that our man Mikael Vaalkoth's precocious talent was firmly beyond reproach- while Shadowcaster, Night Conquers Day and Into The Sunless Meridian each represent noteworthy landmarks in his accomplished career, Tearstained has, to my mind, banished any doubt that they stand firmly alongside Grand Belial's Key and Demoncy as the finest American black metal outfit of the past decade. Imbuing the acrid, demonic filth of 'Under The Sign Of The Black Mark' with 'Don't Break The Oath' dread, Tearstained's nigh near untouchable Suicide Trilogy remains perhaps the most ineffably brilliant triumvirate of recordings to be exhumed from the bowels of the American underground in quite some time. With the release of 'Final Thoughts', Mikael appears to have shut the door, at least tentatively, on the acrimoniously nihilistic brand of black spite that has heretofore defined Tearstained - while the preoccupation with taking life remains omnipresent, our protagonist no longer appears obsessed with taking his own- Mikael's insuppressible angst has manifested itself in an overarching inclination towards murder, hence the explicit title.

Color me somewhat unimpressed, then, as Mikael has taken a stylistic 180 here- in place of the brooding, primal, visceral urgency of 'Final Thoughts', here we are greeted with curmudgeonly, typical death/thrash with liberal amounts of Nordic tremolo- an impossibly drab concoction made all the more unpalatable by wafer-thin production and painfully mechanical programmed percussion. Now, I realize that the drum machine has always been a source of consternation for me as far as Tearstained has been concerned, but here it really reaches boiling point, the sterility of much of the riffing and the slightness of the production compounding the tinny, robotic rhythms. Granted, there has always been a degree of impetuousness, even amateurishness that has permeated all Tearstained material, but more often than not it has given their records a spontaneous, charming abandon and bristling energy that has eclipsed any glaring technical shortcomings. Here, the conviction continues to sparkle, but the execution is, more often than not, haphazard and hackneyed, the album coming across as a dubious, frayed pastiche of castaway Possessed, Destruction and trebly Norseness that, to these ears, remains somewhat underwhelming.

To call this a BAD album would, of course, be somewhat erroneous- this is, after all, a Tearstained album, and Mikael's intimate familiarity with death/thrash's foremost progenitors is obvious, even if his execution is somewhat slipshod. For a sterling example of how frustrating this album can be, though, look no further than “Time Bomb”, which commences with an awkwardly stunted, choppy main riff and similarly half-hatched vocal phrasing (supposed to resemble the ticking of a time bomb, I surmise) until it picks up about two-thirds through and swells into a frenzied, flesh-flaying display of Torrao-and-Lalonde flavored goodness. Worsening issues is the flagrant bigotry of the lyrical content- it appears that many of Mikael's deathwishes are directed towards dark-skinned individuals, who he ludicrously suggests are culpable for the downfall of American society, seeding, germinating and nurturing a “ghetto culture” that smothers the quintessential American values. I'm a tad sorry to burst your bubble, dear sir, but I somewhat doubt that the Afro-American community has the influence to instigate this insidious upheaval of all that you hold dear. My feathers are not usually roused by racialistic rhetoric- I am, indeed, of a racial minority (being Asian), but for the likes of Graveland, Grand Belial's Key, Arghoslent, Lust and the like I have been eager to overlook unfashionable political overtones for the sake of the music. Here, however, I cannot play the dunce. I won't mince words here, I think some of the perspectives presented here are painfully myopic.

August 17th, 2006