88 - Radical War

If you hated Nazis before hearing 88, just wait until after!

Seriously, this is pretty terrible.  NSBM isn’t exactly known for its stringent musical quality control, but this is really bad by any standard.  First off, the production: unbelievably quiet.  You have to turn your volume three quarters of the way up to hear ANYTHING.  I ripped my tape of this and clipping is essentially unavoidable, it’s so quiet.  When you do turn it up and hear it, you just want to turn it back down: boring drumming (not sure if it’s a machine or not, but those cymbals are fucking atrocious), buzzy guitar playing completely uninspired (and almost inaudible) riffs, and weirdly distorted, maybe pitch-shifted roaring vocals.  The midpaced riffs are all Hellhammer/Celtic Frost ripoffs, and the tremolo is completely generic black metal.  Of the two tracks, the title track is the more tolerable of the two; at least it has some tempo changes and they decided to put a generic German drinking song at the end, which is better than any of the metal.

This sucks, but fortunately you’ll probably never hear it.  88 is only really known because of its ‘mysterious’ image and cult following among undiscerning skinheads, so just ignore it and it’ll eventually go away.  Or just keep turning out rehearsals.  The result’s the same, either way.

~ by noktorn on March 28, 2008.