Videoclip of the Month!!!

Friday, August 12, 2011

The Furor - War Upon Worship

The Furor - War Upon Worship



War Upon Worship is The Furor’s third studio album which was released under the Australian label Prime Cuts Music.  The Furor are trying to make it big in Australia, metalcore/deathcore territory, but there is a catch, these guys black metal. Although black metal isn’t big in Australia, there is no doubt in my mind that there have been some excellent black metal that has come out of Australia. Some notable bands are Abominator, Bestial Warlust and, of course, Destroyer 666. Apart from that, the Australian scene isn’t as extensive or popular as the American or Transylvanian scenes. But don’t let this fool you, there are many, many black metal bands in Australia. They just haven’t been found yet. So the question is, could The Furor be added to this list of legends?

The Furor and be described as being blackened death metal in the sense that they play as aggressive as many death metal bands. But the thing is that they have almost none of the other characteristics which create death metal. They don’t have the same song structure, vocal techniques or distortion in their guitars. These guys lean towards the likes of Marduk as far as their music is concerned. They have similar song structure and musically techniques. So it’s a safe thing to infer that these guys have been influenced by Marduk in one way or another. Like Marduk (old Marduk that is) these guys are nonstop brutality all the way. There is absolutely no stopping the aggressiveness of this album and the fascinating thing about it all is that they carry this momentum throughout the entire album, not just one or two songs. This is quite rare, and when bands do this, and do it right, I applaud them.

Another thing that should be pointed out about this album is the atmosphere utilized in their music. For some reason, bands such as Endstille, Infernal War and even Marduk use the exact same style of atmosphere. Now I don’t know if this is just down to coincidence or if there is a little alliance forming here. The thing is that The Furor doesn’t include this into their brutal sound, which is something out of the ordinary. Now I’m not trying to imply that the atmosphere that Endstille or Infernal War or Marduk is bad, not at all, I’m just saying it’s good to having something different. I mean, there are already many bands that do this, why follow suit? Rather going for a swaying atmosphere that many brutal black metal bands tend to aim for, their music is supported by a more “complex” atmosphere. The swaying atmosphere is just what the name implies. The atmosphere sounds like is it swaying from high to low pitch, which is brought about by the guitars. Now this sounds quite simple (it sounds simple, but playing it might just be a different story), The Furor have chosen to use the same guitar distortion/tone except there is no swaying and the riffs are more complex. Even though I believe that they both sound pretty good to the ear, I just think that this style is something different.

For all who know anything about extreme metal, know that blast beats play a huge part in making their music extreme. It’s almost essential for an extreme metal band, and more so, typically with black metal and death metal. Well what do you know, a band labelled as blackened death metal! Of course it’s going to have blast beats. And I must say, they are some of the best I have ever heard. Many bands (usually black metal) typically emphasise their blast beats by changing the pitch of the skins on the drums. Now depending on what sound they are trying to aim for, depends on what style they use. But many bands tend to use a higher pitch, but the only problem is that it tends to overpower the rest of the music. Now this is a little dire because it might seem like they are hiding something behind a wall of blast beats. The thing I like about The Furor’s sound is that their drums aren’t overpowering at all. They don’t seem to have that really high pitched drumming. This creates a sort of humming in the background, which creates another element in their atmosphere, which lets the rest of their music take centre stage. I don’t think that the blast beats could have been more spot on!

Another interesting about this band is their guitar work, this might just be a coincidence but for some reason, black metal isn’t big on guitar solos but there are a few exceptions to this (eg Infernal War and many black thrash bands out there). The solos here are amazing, they can either slow and ambient to extremely fast and aggressive. The best thing that I like about them is the way they have implemented their solos into their sound, they have the fast ones during the fast parts in their songs and the slower ones during the slower parts in their songs (which don’t last for very long). Their solos aren’t the same as metalcore or some thrash metal solos. The ones here are not melodic at all, there is so music shredding going on here, complete utter mindless shredding. Also, they don’t last for 10 minutes like many other solos, they are short and sweet and they usually appear three or four times throughout a single song.

But they do have some drawbacks. I think the lack of song structure is where they fall down quite a bit. This whole album just seems like mindless shredding of the guitars and banging of the drums. Although this is still great black metal, it would be good if they had put a little more thought on how they organised their music. Their song structure is extremely messy and lacks any evidence of tightness within their music. But then again, this could be the first technical black metal band. Because their song structure, I think resembles technical death metal more than your typical black metal band.
But there is one, major fault that this album has, and something every band in the world tries to avoid but some fail. And that is, yes ladies and gentlemen REPETITIVITY. There is so much repetitiveness going through the veins of this album. I reckon that you could just make this whole album into a single track and no-one would notice. Yes, they have kept their momentum going throughout their entire album which is a good thing, but at what cost? There are no; vocal changes, changes in their atmosphere or changes in music techniques. I think that the only thing that might not seem as linear is the tempo, there are a few tempo changes throughout their music which keeps it from being as plain as cereal.

Overall, this isn’t bad album. These guys have created a few moments in this album that are worth savouring. These guys are as brutal and as ruthless and any black metal band from anywhere in the world so it’s not fair or right to discount the fact that they are from Australia. Because as I mentioned before, Australia has produced some excellent black metal, and metal in general. These guys are worth giving a shot if you are a fan of extremely brutal black metal. Or if you just like extreme metal (the most extreme of the extreme) because this will easily satisfy. I’d also like to recommend this to fans of Marduk and Infernal War because whoever likes those, are bound to like this. This might just give you a little break from the generic brutal black metal sound that is ever so needed. I recommend the track Hammers Of Masters for first time listeners because this is the track that summarises everything about this album (the good, the bad and the ugly). In conclusion, this is not a perfect album, but they do have a couple glitches that affect them quite a bit. I give The Furor’s third album War Upon Worship a 14/20.




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