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Anyone
with a good ear and a distaste for metal music may
dismiss the first full-length of Canada’s Weapon based
on the execution of the instrumental and album opener
“Weapon”. It’s an evolving track that swiftly moves from
acoustic guitar to growing heaviness highlighted by ominous
open chords and a subdued but sparkly solo and the
obligatory shift to thrashy speed. What’s wrong with it?
Nothing. But there is something totally out of tune with
the song, where at times the revolutions sound a little
slow and even when the music picks up to blast beat
speed it still seems at odds with the rest. Maybe is the
drums. Or maybe is the dissonant quality that this band
seems to splash their music with. I am not sure, but I am
digging it.
“Cacophony!
Black Sun Dragon's Tongue!” starts off with a gong. No kidding.
Then Weapon moves on in a vicious and sickening mid tempo. The
riff is corrosive, the mood is dingy, the sounds are raw and
underproduced. Vocalist Vetis Monarch doesn’t exaggerate but
makes you uncomfortable in this hot breathed vocal angle of his.
He even gets some vocal help in the shape of what sounds like
his comrades backing up his evil deeds.
There is
something utterly old school and classic about Weapon’s sound.
Maybe is the hectic manner in which the music evolves. Maybe is
the almost clumsy mode in which the drums are rapidly beaten and
the guitars are flashed to the onlookers. It’s exasperating
music. Yet, the sophistication is all over Drakonian Paradigm.
The ambition of the band in crafting complex songs, not by riff
but by totality.
And the
lyrics are no joke. Did anyone think of this before Weapon and I
just didn’t notice? Because looking at the band’s brief
discography we see that their target is not Christianity but
Islam. Seven-minute closer “Remnants of a Burnt Mosque” was
first included in the Violate Hejab EP of 2005 and it includes
lines such as, ‘a crimson saga of Muslims burned!, while
Mohammad weeps (like a broken parasite), only the dead whisper Allahu-Akbar’. Yeah, black metallers need to seek other gods to
attack.
Despite of the possible repercussions and the fact that may all
have been said and done before this album was released anyway, it
is the music that impacts the most. Give Drakonian Paradigm
at least three spins and you won’t be able to put it down.
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