In an interview with Ghost Cult magazine, Behemoth frontman and guitarist Nergal discussed the band's new album The Satanist and how it was written to be emotionally taxing on the listener, how the band aim to keep their black metal sound to some extent and his own inspirations.
Then he touches on a topic that I personally have been thinking about for a while now. He says that a lot of United States-based death metal groups are boring.
"The majority of Death Metal bands from the U.S.A are so generic, they all sound perfect. It is fast and technical but there is no substance. Bands forget about emotion when they strive for perfection. You should be driven by your intuition and not just be concerned with shredding on your guitar. Perfection is boring and uninspiring."
Yes. Yes a thousand times over!
In defense of the genre it absolutely calls for some level of perfection to be involved because that's just the nature of the music, but mechanically perfect? Might as well just have programmed the instruments and then laid some vocals over top.
There was actually an interview recently with Gorguts bassist Colin Marston (I can't remember where I saw it) where he talks about having recorded the songs on the groups' 2013 effort Colored Sands in one take because he wanted the technically challenging parts to sound tired at the end like they would live, and how there's definitely some mistakes on the record but it gives the music a certain character. I'm with Marston- I like a little human touch in my music. I think it adds a certain level of realism and helps me connect with the music on an emotional level. As in "it's tiring music, you're obviously trucking through this riff as I'd expect but you sound like you've really been at it. Awesome."
So what do you think? Is Nergal being too critical or do we need to step away from the technological help a little bit?
