Limbonic Art - The Ultimate Death Worship

Before this album, I have never heard something so absolutely unnecessary in my history of listening to music. "The Ultimate Death Worship" is the black metal equivalent of a Backstreet Boys "Greatest Hits Compilation." It's not that Limbonic Art aren't good musicians or good songwriters (which they aren't) but their style of melodic black metal is extremely stale and Limbonic Art does nothing to make it exciting. In fact, they make symphonic black metal less exciting. The whole style in which they compose has been overcooked to a degree in which it is no longer edible. What is even worse for Limbonic Art is that "The Ultimate Death Worship" was never edible to begin with. They are trying to cook rancid maggot infested meat and make it taste like fillet mignon. Combine irritating keyboards, inferior songwriting and samples worse than shitting yourself at the beginning of an airplane ride and the effect of Limbonic Art's album is near enough to poke with a short, poison tipped stick. The album is flawed irreversibly. It is not a matter of fixing a guitar part here, or adding some slight reverb to the drums or increasing volume of the bass guitar.

Addressing the keyboards on this album is both a wonderful chance to explain why I hate keyboards so much and also a great opportunity to utilize this hate to obliterate their usage on this album. Keyboards are a useful tool for creating quick and easy pseudo-atmosphere on a record. Keyboards come loaded with tons of effects and instrument modelers which make hiring real musicians a wasteful expense. Keyboards when used properly can recreate the sound of marching legions coming from hell, but still sound like evil carnival music. When used improperly they ALWAYS sound like evil carnival music and nothing less. Keyboards are also the most unmetal of all instruments. They remove any sense of bestiality and primitivism from black metal and make all forms of traditional and power metal sound like arena rock. Keyboardists, when playing on stage, always look like they are in an eternal squatting position, as if they are constantly being kicked in the balls every time they press a key and emit a girlish screeching wailing note instead of a manly painful grunt. Admittedly, Keyboards are not always terrible and will on occasion work as long as they exist inoffensively and are recorded with top of the line equipment. This usually works best on albums in which keyboards don't actually exist.

Limbonic Art has successfully created the worst showing of keyboards in black metal I have ever heard. The first track, the album's self titled song, is at best mediocre until the atrocious toy-ish keyboards start assembling. With keyboard accents accenting every note, there really is no such thing as accents. When the keyboards on your album sound like the battle effects from Legend of Zelda Windwaker and the flute leads (midi flute leads) sound like an SNES recreation of Aqualung there should be at least one person in the band thinking "This doesn't sound right..." Somewhere between the end of the first track and beginning of the second track is some weird spoken word segment focused around the death of a death row inmate. This between-track-purgatory consists of someone speaking through a walky-talky and stealing the background music for the next forgettable survival horror video game. All I know is that the title track is just the first dingleberry on the yak's ass.

While I could neatly rip apart any track on "The Ultimate Death Worship" with nothing more than a spoon and a damp washcloth, I feel compelled to point out the worst track. "Towards The Oblivion Of Dreams" is a bombastic amateurish romp through every stereotypical symphonic black metal convention that exists without doing anything to break the mold and lead the molten metal in a new direction. Considering the poor job Limbonic Art does at making symphonic black metal, however, I would be even more frightened to hear them attempt something new and unique. The childlike chanting and warnings in the track's introduction sound more like the fat kid on the playground. Some slight metallic jingling makes it sound like he's got change in his pocket as well. Ignoring the next two and a half minutes of banal riffs with more of that terrible keyboard instrumentation, the track kicks off into a sloppy black metal tremolo riff. After another three full minutes of crapboards and mind-numbing unoriginality, "Dreams" decides to try something interesting with a slow, doomy riff. If you guessed that keyboards ruined the sole chance the song had of creating atmosphere during this critical juncture, you win every copy of this album ever printed to use just for stress relief. This song is ten minutes long... there is no reason for such a pretentious song length. I would rather be waterboarded than listen to this flatulence.

What makes this album so spectacularly terrible besides the terrible songwriting, irritating keyboards and spunk-covered gay-porn samples is the album's tone. Fagboards have been discussed already but Daemon and Morfeus (Morfeus? Seriously?) have more at their disposal than stolen Fisher Price keyboards and kidnapped playground bullies. Daemon handles the vocals and lyrics and while I could go on endlessly about how he sounds like a constipated Gollum with a sore throat, it is easier to describe his vocals using his own lyrics. Taken from "Purgatorial Agony," a song that sounds like Butthead splooging inside an angry dwarf , Daemon's vocal talents "hide within places unknown." Other phrases from this song which apply: "There was nothing else to do", "Reservoirs of shame", and the classic Freshmaker hating battlecry of "Mentos Undivine." While Daemon is getting upset over breath-fresheners, Morfeus is trying his best to be genuine by burying every riff underneath a sagging elderly triple D sized breast full of muffled distorted bass and a buzzy guitar tone that sounds less like heavy and more like cheap amplifier. Do I need to describe what programmed drums sound like also? Thankfully they are neatly buried under everything else.

____________RELEASE INFO________________
LIMBONIC ART - THE ULTIMATE DEATH WORSHIP
Year: 2002
Origin: NORWAY (Sandefjord)
Label: Black Metal Attack Records
Serial: BMA 002

Lineup:
Daemon: Guitars, Vocals, Lyrics, PSYCHO PIANO (LOL)
Morfeus: Guitars, Electronics
Guest Vocals: Attila Csihar (Why stoop so low Attila?)

Track Listing:
1. The Ultimate Death Worship
2. Suicide Commando
3. Purgatorial Agony
4. Towards The Oblivion Of Dreams
5. Last Rite For The Silent Darkstar
6. Interstellar Overdrive
7. From The Shades Of Hatred
8. Funeral Death

________________LINKS___________________
Limbonic Art Myspace
Black Metal Attack Records

_____________EXTRA INFO_________________
Reviews:

Interviews:

Pressings:
Black Metal Attack Records: BMA 002 (2002)