It seems most quality German Depressive Black metal that comes out these days is released by Temple Of Torturous. From China. Go figure. Anyway, Temple Of Torturous regularly releases quality misanthropic Black metal upon mankind and recent times saw another batch of releases by them. First off, Total Negation's.It's easy to dismiss Total Negation, fuelled by sole member Wiedergaenger, as another generic Depressive Black metal act upon first listen, but subsequent plays reveal that there's more to this band than just misanthropy and black screechy fuzz. In fact, the music hops from fast raging Black metal to slow, hateful Depressive Black metal with ditto vocals and occasionally falls into a pit of dissonance with psychedelic touches and 'spaced out' production. It makes me wonder why they didn't give sounds such as the 'shifting riffs' in the background during the title track (0:45 - 0:50) a more prominent role in the songs. Most of their songs contain a few very awesome moments (great leads, the aforementioned riffs, bursts of beautiful spacey dissonance and such) but fail to impress when you 'zoom out'. You just really have to search for the good stuff, here.
It's a shame the band chose raw Black metal as main theme of the music. If he would have focused more on the spacious brain-damaging riff that they display every now and then, he would surely have come across as a whole lot better and more unique.
Total Negation - A Life Lead by Sorrow and Not by Myself
Tracklist
1. Consumed 2. Mistake
3. Dead Day
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