Release date: 2005
Type: Split
Label: Darkland Records
Country: Scotland/Germany
Genre: Black Metal
-written by Noktorn of metal-archives.com
ANOTHER HORRIFYING CASE OF OVERSHADOWING
I'd like to peek inside the mind of the person who thought to put these two bands together on a split, because the logical processes involved must be fascinating. Short of a bootleg live recording of Barry Manilow, I can hardly think of a more inappropriate conjunction of artists than these two, especially one so sadistically overshadows the other - and worse yet, the lesser of the two is on side B, forcing them to try and clean up the wreckage left by the first while avoiding the rotten vegetables heaved at them by an unfriendly crowd. German project Camulos is up against Scottish endeavour Ainshval, and the former so massively outdoes the latter that I can't help but feel some measure of pity for them. Ainshval's music, not particularly exceptional in its own right, suffers even greater indignity when stacked up against the verging-on-great Camulos, who display so little mercy or restraint with their tracks you almost think they're getting even for some behind-the-scenes wrongdoing. Eep. If I were one of the Scots, I'd sue for libel.
Camulos, to me, represents a sort of possible ideal form for black metal, where any and all obedience to the unwritten rules of the style are offered up for sacrifice in pursuit of sheer memorability. I've always appreciated extreme metal bands who, without sacrificing their intensity, manage to incorporate pop's sense of immediacy and almost hedonistic musical joy, and Camulos is one such band. Melodically sculpted from the earliest works of Dimmu Borgir ("Stormblåst" in particular,) Camulos' music places the most accessible and infectious melodies of the scene's perpetual symphonic whipping boy into a wildly prideful, ripping, uniquely German context, making melodic black metal that plays like Marduk but feels like rock or pop: smooth, intensely listenable, and viscerally pleasing. The band takes the lightly folk-dusted rock sensibility of Dimmu's earliest works and strips them down so they can be easily fit into a perpetual explosion of blast beats and tremolo riffing, interrupted only by simple, elegant rhythmic passages most similar to metalcore breakdowns (as on "Ketzer.") The transgression of black metal's standards is so obvious and unapologetic that at first you almost wonder if there's anything unusual going on: until you hear the absurdly elegant, impossibly sleek riffing, which makes not a single nod to Darkthrone as it glides through a seemingly endless series of simple, instinctual melodies.
None of this is to say that Camulos isn't playing black metal; of course, all the aesthetic tropes are neatly in place. But the effect of listening to it is more similar to that of Parkway Drive than Burzum, and the songs flow in such an impossibly organic, rocklike manner (the initial rhythmic shifts of "Das Ende Der Welt" are so natural they might as well be made of flesh and blood) that little of black metal's typical musical or emotional wavelength is explored. This might be a tragedy to some- I have no doubt that ANUSites all over the world are cringing at my description of their worst nightmare come to life- but for me, who's heard so much straightforward, dissonant buzzing, it's a breath of welcome air. Camulos' music is clean, refined, and polished to a fault, with the perfect balance of aggressive rhythmic attack and "Broderskapets Ring" sway, making for the perfect sort of music to listen to after a session of clutter, technicality, and dissonance. It's hardly high art, and I have no doubt that the schtick would wear thin after repeated plays, but all things considered, it's a remarkable exercise is professionalism and dynamics.
Ainshval, on the other hand, represents a complete artistic and musical 180, being a band so obsessed with their own sense of authenticity that they'll sacrifice anything and everything in order to maintain it. A borderline unlistenable mixture of depressive black metal aesthetics with a droning, Gower-like musical form and an attempt at the hermetic, primitivist atmosphere of Striborg, Ainshval's music is little more than a collection of underground black metal's rawest, most reductionist tropes, constructed seemingly in the hopes that the more cult-seeming bullet points are lashed together, the more the demos will fetch on Ebay. A tinny and obnoxious drum machine etches out an unchanging wall of thrash beats, guitars alternate between basically arbitrary dissonance and slow, ostentatious "epic" melodies, and vocals frantically yelp and shriek where applicable- and where not. It's almost as though the band is consciously pursuing the accidental parts of low-rent bedroom black metal and thinks that arriving at its flaws intentionally instead of accidentally makes all the difference. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't.
I'd usually dismiss this sort of thing as just bad black metal, but Ainshval assembles it in the manner that suggests they want it to function as the transgressive, "true" music in an Aquarius sale rack. While all of it sucks, the fact that all of it is present is what makes it curious. "Ainshval - The Stronghold" is an Ildjarn-like burst of mindless ferocity, "Pictish Pride" sounds like some sort of retarded progenitor of Animus, "To Share the Lifesblood of My Dark Land" brings to mind Striborg or the weirder parts of Blazebirth Hall- none of it connects to anything else aesthetically, but each style attempted is so pointedly similar to something else that douchebags listen to that it seems conscious. Whether my conspiracy theory happens to be true or not is mostly irrelevant, though, as it sucks either way, both unable to adhere to a single brand of failure and at least get points for consistency and equally unable to stumble into something of value amidst the dozen styles the band attempts. It's sort of fascinating in a weird, cultural way, but it's ultimately completely useless to anyone actually looking for, you know, good music.
Camulos' tracks are probably worth the price of admission alone, so I can at least recommend this in a general sense, but Ainshval's music is better left completely ignored. Half great, half garbage; in the end, pretty much a microcosm of the entire black metal scene on one split.
57/100
