Midnight Funeral - Visions Through The Dark Memories

I should have known and guessed that Midnight Funeral would be awful but just how poor was unexpected. I expected just some generic lo-fi bedroom black metal that, although not exciting or original would be listenable for the three song duration. Instead, "Visions Through The Dark Memories" spewed forth a storm of what may be the worst music I've ever heard. Most frighteningly, this demo came out AFTER their full length debut which, I must admit, I will never touch unless threatened by the dudes in Aetherius Obscuritus or should someone hold a knife to my cock while wearing a John Wayne Gacy clown outfit and holding a two-thirds empty bottle of Sailor Jerry's. The problem here is mostly two fold. Poorly written songs and poorly performed instrumentation.  Pretty lame artwork on the front cover too. Overall, this sounds like a retarded Darkthrone clone but you probably already knew that.

The title track to the demo is the better of the three tracks but not really. "Visions Through Dark Memories" starts with some chanting and sample crow sounds before devolving into an allergic tremolo guitar tone. While the guitar lack all bass definition, the actual bass guitar is either playing completely different notes or is out of tune completely. Also, the drums are often out of sync and time with the rest of the music. The whole demo this is not fixed. Nineteen minutes of out of tune and out of time lo-fi bedroom black metal. It's the stuff which renders the common opinion that there are too many bands with recording ability proven. I can't believe this found it's way to me. The worst of the tracks has to be the final track, "Lucifer's Majestic Creation," which sounds like someone put the other two tracks from the album over each other and then pressed the "go" button. The one aspect of Midnight Funeral which I can't complain about, strangely, are Count Leviathan's vocals which are actually pretty good.

Other than that though, if the absence of bedrooms - and thus the absence of bedroom black metal - could be enacted through law or something, we should consider it. These kind of releases do nothing for anyone. Midnight Funeral couldn't have though that this sounded good. Why even put it out publicly? It just clogs the market, makes black metal fans resentful and perpetuates what is quickly becoming a supportable hypothesis that bedroom black metal bands are going to kill the genre through the sheer quantity of terrible, generic and poorly played black metal in comparison to crafted black metal art. I get the urge for fans to try their hand at putting out demos but at some point, quality control is needed. If Midnight Funeral continues with more releases, it would be hard for anyone who's heard this release to care at all about giving them a listen. The disgusting aftertaste of this release is just too strong for many to give the band a second chance.

 

I don't normally post my notes but I thought these were warranted by how easily I gave up trying to point out specifics on the final two tracks. Yes, these are what my notes look like.