I Shalt Become – Poison

site | label | buy

From the files of black metal bent on expanding its boundaries so much that it no longer resembles black metal, we have the new record from USBM progenitor S. Holliman of one-man act I Shalt Become. Once favorably compared to Burzum and Judas Iscariot, it seems Holliman has now settled upon rewriting the works of the great film composer Hans Zimmer with far less skill and far more hackneyed black metal bits. Poison is an absolute disaster of an album. Every song feels like an intro track to a proper black metal album. Guitars rarely appear, and when they do, it’s not to play a riff or a solo; it’s just an ambient backing track for the ever-present orchestra. The trouble with writing a classical album is that no matter what you do, it will have been done before and done better. I Shalt Become doesn’t near the ambition of the likes of Beethoven or Mozart, so they settle for writing film score music. But even then, they don’t inspire like Ennio Morricone or John Williams; they merely write cliché orchestral music that could be copy-pasted over any “epic” scene in cinematic history. There’s occasional black metal rasps buried beneath the countless tracks of orchestration, but they’re so low in the mix that they don’t add anything to the songs. Poison is a record filled with competent orchestral music, and none of it offends the senses. It’s simply that there’s no reason to ever listen to it.

Written by Brad Sanders
More: 2010, Albums, Black Metal, Other, Quick.Play Reviews, I Shalt Become