Dødsfall — Kaosmakt
For an album named after the power of chaos, Kaosmakt is surprisingly tame. Maybe not in the traditional sense of the word, but by black metal standards this is downright mild. Based in a dated foundation built upon Darkthrone and some more modern Swedish bands like Valkyrja, the main problem with this album is one that plagues many would-be black metallers: a lack of originality. That’s not to say that originality is something required, but there needs to be at least a flicker of mean, gritty passion to make it work. Kaosmakt lacks that save for a few moments scattered throughout the album. The majority is built off of rhythm-quality tremolo leads and processed, multi-tracked screams. Plagued by riffs that would have seemed tired ten years ago, Kaosmakt feels like a number of faceless bands, only with big-label production.
That’s not to say it’s all bad, though. When Dødsfall manage to work out of the artistic corner they’ve put themselves in, they show that they have the drive and talent to make some quality metal. The lengthy closer, for example, “Fitte av Kristus”, packs some meaty, scorching tremolos along with some violent black/thrash riffs that give the track a great arc and sense of pace despite its 10 minute runtime. “Ain” is another solid track that interjects some more melody into their spite-driven style, with a mournful solo to boot. But these moments are few and far between, and the album is a largely stale listening experience. There are enough moments to say that these instances of quality are more than flukes, but Dødsfall is going to have to take a long, hard look at itself and reevaluate what it wants to do; there’s nothing but forgettable and derivative black metal ahead of them if they carry down this path.