SUPERVILLAIN OUTCAST

Dødheimsgard (which roughly translates into something like 'Mansion of Death') is one of the most underrated Black Metal bands in history. Their work is very avant-garde and experimental... and extremely progressive within the (often quite narrow-minded and conservative) Black Metal genre.

The sound of this album is a mixture of Electronic Industrial and Black Metal, but it's much more organic sounding than their previous album, which i consider a bad thing in this case. I loved the extremely anti-human and mechanical feeling of '666 International'. 'Supervillain Outcast' has a more natural sound, especially with the mostly acoustic drums. The drummer is very good and turns in an amazing performance on every track... but i'd much prefer they return to their unrelenting, cyberblasting, electronic drum sounds.

They haven't totally lost their raging, robotic, post-apocalyptic edge... this album is filled with harsh alien noises and bizarre samples. Nightmarish sounds abound: distorted voices of wounded animals howl in 'Horrorizon' over furious blastbeats... while the hopeless wailing of lost souls can be heard buried in the murk of 'Foe X Foe'.

My favorite track is the most un-Metal on the entire album... 'All Is Not Self' is a lethargic depressive Darkwave anthem. Moaning suicidal vocals languidly drift over abyssic layers of downcast clean guitars and electronic percussion. It's very gloomy and trance-inducing; it produces a totally surreal form of melancholy.

Another depressive favorite: '21st Century Devil' features an excellent Moog-like synth lead in 5/4 timing over dark flowing rivers of distorted guitar and hoarse demonic vocals... and finally an Industrial-style beat in the middle as well.

This is very good material for the most part, but I like '666 International' better. The new vocalist is not quite as engaging as the previous one, and the music sounds overall more streamlined and common... less insane. This is only when compared to their previous work, though, because this album is still lightyears beyond the typical run-of-the-mill Black Metal band.

There is enough unique and interesting music here to merit a hearty recommendation to all open-minded Extreme Prog Metal fans.