Chained And Desperate – Divine Authority Abolishment

site | label | buy

After a full decade of demoing and a subsequent eleven year hiatus after the release of their 2000 debut full-length Eleven Angles In A Circle, Greek black metal squad Chained and Desperate have returned with Divine Authority Abolishment, a nine-track LP that is frankly nine tracks too long. Even looking past (with great effort) the terrible band name, album title, album cover, and logo fonts, the album is a poorly produced, uninspired chunk of black metal retread that wouldn’t be worth the cheapest of bargain bin prices. Nearly every element present on the record is a poorly executed version of something that’s been done better, be it by fellow Grecians Rotting Christ or genre progenitors like Bathory and Mayhem. The vocals are especially criminal, with both cliché black metal shrieks and heavily-accented, faux-emo clean singing taking over the paper-thin production for excruciating minutes at a time. The riffs and drums (and probably bass, but alas, it’s inaudible) likewise settle into a complacent tendency to do what’s been done before a little bit worse. Where the album very nearly redeems itself is in the often fantastic guitar leads and melodies, which recall Watain in their ability to lend heavy metal swagger to a subgenre so focused on atmosphere. Unfortunately, atmosphere is key in black metal, and Divine Authority Abolishment establishes none. It is a trite album that will likely see its creators lost to the sands of time, a fate they very much deserve if they don’t rapidly improve their craft.

Written by Brad Sanders
More: 2011, Albums, Black Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Chained And Desperate