The Day Your Palace Burned

To say that black metal is an enigmatic subgenre of metal would be an understatement. The sheer gloominess of the many of its songs and the speed and aggression of others cannot be matched by any other subgenre. However, it also has many polarizing views from both fans and detractors. Some say it's a deep and artsy way of expressing hatred towards life and society as well as religion, while others say it's primitive and unskilled with the worst production quality possible. Me? I'm kind of torn. While the naysayers do have a point in saying that there's not much skill, there is also the fact that the songs might appeal to emotion. This is where Seke Nipahem's album, "The Day Your Palace Burned" comes in.

It's true that the riffs aren't all that special, at least not to purists. While they aren't basic power chords that can be found in most other subgenres, the hooks in general just basically consist of many angry-sounding chords played with no chugging notes or arpeggios. On the other hand we get a song like "Dead Inside", which contains, get this, somewhat happy-sounding chords (or at least chords that might be misinterpreted as happy-sounding). No, I'm not kidding. Despite the aggressive blastbeat speed and morbid song title, we get some oddly happy-sounding chords. In my opinion, that really doesn't belong in black metal. It just sounds so out of place and weird. What we also get, however are actual guitar solos, not all that common in the world of black metal. Usually when black metal songs have guitar solos, they're just as basic and generic as the song's hooks, possibly single notes played repeatedly (sometimes rapidly-played individual strings on the guitar) and not much else. We do get some arpeggios here and there. What's astounding is the fact that those arpeggios are played real fast, (not as fast as Yngwie, but still) and that can be really something. Just listen to the solos of "The Weak Flesh" as an example, and you'll see what I mean.

Of course, Seke Nipahem is a black metal band, so it's gotta have the black metal starter kit; blastbeats, morbid imagery for the songs subject matters, and of course, lousy production quality. Those are to be expected, so I really don't mind them so much. What I do mind, however, is the opening song, "Prelude to Suicide". It's just basically three minutes of that same melody being played again and again, and not on the guitar, either, but on the keyboards. When the song "I Just Wanted to Kill Myself" begins, it's basically the same melody as "Prelude to Suicide". What's up with that? Okay, the song has "Prelude" in its title, right? So you've got to keep it under a minute tops, especially if that same melody has to be repeated. The vocalist also has to have that raspy voice that imitates Quorthon, possibly the most imitated black metal vocalist of all time, so much so that any black metal band that does this is just another redundant wannabe. He also pulls of some pretty weak attempts at metal screams. There's also the instrumental track, "The Hours She Makes Me Count". It pretty much demonstrates either the lack of musicianship or the bad production. Whatever the case, the instruments, like the bass and the keyboards aren't in sync with each other. There's also the fact that some of the solos, no matter how good they sound, aren't in sync with the songs' tempos and main riffs (case in point; the title track).

I have mentioned the angry (or depressing, depending on the song)-sounding chords that make up these somewhat generic riffs, though, to be fair, it would only take some simple chords to appeal to emotion rather than intellect. That's probably why some people listen to black metal, it's 'cos the music was meant to convey a very dark atmosphere rather than create a musical masterpiece. In this case, Seke Niapem does a pretty good job. With the exception of "Dead inside" (see the paragraph above), the music really has quite a haunting vibe in many songs, others are more random. Take for instance "She Stole My Heart and Gave It to Him", which starts off as this slow, morose-sounding ballad-like song, but then kicks into an angry, blastbeat-ridden juggernaut.

The music probably isn't for the people that are looking for the metal equivalent of Mozart, they're never going to find the talent they're expecting. It's geared more towards people who seek emotion in their music, and "The Day Your Palace Burned" has it right here. It might be generic in some respects, but in others, we also get a few surprises. Still, I really don't consider it to be good enough to be "perfect", it's got its flaws, but what some would call its "flaws" would also be its perks to others. That still doesn't excuse many black metal bands from constantly recycling riffs and ideas and thus nullifying them. Seke Nipahem, however, is not, by any means, boring, at least not to me.