However promising, De Doden Hebben Het Goed soon delves into the depressingly indulgent status quo of scene black metal by sufficiently adhering to all the tropes you would expect from the genre.
Gone are the days of shoddy four track manipulation and so all that can be said for the choice in mastering this is that it has been made for arts sake. Black metal experimentation is nothing new, Ved Buens Ende and In The Woods… perfected it, Arcturus progressed it and Dimmu Borgir made it popular. Wiegedood are skirting round that event horizon of kvlt here with poster boy considerations to technical limitations.
There is nothing majestic about this four song album, the riffs are mostly dull while the vocals are drawn out. At best this is a three-way pyramid scheme where the final construct is a trite appropriation of plenitudes inspired by a heavy study of the lords of chaos. Nice enough but without the atmosphere or the intent other than to induce panic of where that half-decent bit went.
A few riffs do approach the ephemeral synergy that the best of the nineties had to offer but these are often followed by comforting pseudo-acoustic play to allow reflection on the intense thrashing that had been before. In effect the structure of this languorous effort is drier than the racy Fifty Shades Of Not Giving A Fuck series. Which ironically does make it quite a good effort but where on His Infernal Majesty did those balls actually go?
3/10
