GLOOMY GRIM — Blood, Monsters, Darkness (review)

GLOOMY GRIM — Blood, Monsters, Darkness album cover Album · 1998 · Symphonic Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
siLLy puPPy
GLOOMY GRIM is a band from Finland that was into making totally over-the-top extreme symphonic black metal. It's whole purpose was to make more-anti-Christian-than-thou black metal, which is exemplified by the artwork on the CD with a picture of Jesus with a circle around him and slash through him. It's very hilarious and I can only take this as a parody of the whole black metal scene since it's so focused on being anti-Christian without really having anything convincing to say.

This is symphonic black metal but it doesn't hold up to the greats of the genre whether you're talking classics like Emperor or modern acts like Carach Angren. There also seems to be a lot of borrowing from movie themes here. For example “Crucifixion” sounds like a black metal rendition of the Jaws theme and “Blood” has a lot of Rosemary's Babyish lalala action going on. There is also a rather decent cover of Ozzy's “Over The Mountain,” although it seems totally out of place.

The strength of this album is the symphonics and added sound effects. They are extremely effective in the cohesiveness of the album. Where this album is a weak is on the black metal side itself. I'm not crazy about the vocalist. He's not horrible but not incredibly convincing either. The female singer who appears from the darkness occasionally is actually better. The songs themselves need a little help to keep my interest as well.

This was one of my first black metal albums that I picked up totally randomly knowing nothing about the band or the subgenre and I can't say I loved this album from the getgo but it did have a few tracks that made me want to keep it. As i'm listening to it right now, I do like it a little bit more after being exposed to exponentially more black metal acts but despite its desire to be over-the-top which doesn't bother me in one bit, they didn't put enough energy into making the songs more interesting so as a whole this album sags a bit and left me with no desire to check out future releases.
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