Subliminal Genocide

So here comes XASTHUR to deliver death thru stereo. It sounds pretty mono to my ears though, so let's say "audio" instead. If you can make it thru the first twelve and a half minutes that is the opening song, you can rest assured that each of the songs after this will sound almost identical. XASTHUR relies heavily on atmospheres to induce a dark trance in the listeners and stir uncomfortable feelings of solitude, despair, and generally anything negative.

This band used to be very good at just that, but things have changed, and XASTHUR don't really make it work for me anymore. XASTHUR has definitely seen worse days than this, and I will definitely say that this album is a step in the rite direction, but things shouldn't be that way by time you make it to album number five (or whatever this album is). XASTHUR has shown no progression in musicianship or production ethics. Everything is still as much a distorted blur as before.

I remember XASTHUR having riffs that were really good, and keyboard sections that accompanied them in the same way. The amount of that in this recording is so minimal that XASTHUR mite as well been a clone band of itself. Even though they were one of the first, it surely doesn't make them one of the best. I'm sure there's many a devil worshipper who will praise this as quality, but I don't care.