Wiegedood, named after the immortal terror of humankind (Cot death), make a return to the land of the living with the aptly titled De Doden Hebben het Goed II and an even worse case of croup. The sequel to their first pro-death campaign De Doden Hebben het Goed II (a.k.a. Return Of The Dead Having It Good) follows the spirit of second helpings as it doesn’t match up to the explosion of that first bitter taste of a new experience.
Taking it easier this time around Wiegedood are pacing themselves for mediocrity and pulling it off expertly, having none of the initial attack from their previous effort but a whole lot of sideways reminders, with deliberate riff drag. Suffice to say this is an album of remorseless filler material compensated with the odd appearance of an overly complex riff. If the principles of this album were inverted then they could very well win an Ignoble Award.
Instead, it’s not going to, not with shower song choruses and a water tank production of riffs that feel more like tearing a plaster off than waxing some demonic lore. The term cliche comes to mind. Externalized in passages of drones that sounds like someone left their amp on while running to the aid of the vocalist who stood on an ineffective but highly pointed object belonging to a true black metal fan during rehearsal.
There aren’t many spikes of enthusiasm in this normalized and gimmicky homage to let’s say Emperor. Where the emphasis of recycling iconic hooks is given to entropy during their lengthy recital. In removing the reactionary response of those black metal colloquialisms they sound more like a studious reenactment. It’s like listening to someone recite a recipe on how to make a baby for yet another experiment in understanding human development.
Humans evolve. Get over it. Is all that it’s necessary to say here. Even dead ones. For example: look at how Bowie evolved in the 2017 Grammy’s but while the Goblin King is out of the picture his minions of the Labyrinth are keeping his pets well and fed with processed repetitive generic music in the absence of power.
6/10
