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Claymore - Prolonged Active Antagonism review



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Band: Claymore
Album: Prolonged Active Antagonism
Release date: September 2008


01. Gift Of Hate
02. Master Of Wishes
03. Near Death Experience
04. Dying In A Dream
05. Built To Kill
06. Centuries Of Chaos
07. Holy Terror
08. My Personal War
09. Mental Hell
10. Warriors Of Claymore

From the archives of семейство позор (Family Feud Bulgaria):

Okay Kliment, now the rules are simple. Give me the first two words that pop into mind when you hear the following. When I say go? The word's Claymore. Go:

"?uh, damn it. I hate stuff like this. Shit! Ah, uh, Black Metal!"

'Black Metal' he says. Hmm. Interesting. Care to explain?

"Claymore's a local melodic black metal band. Sound a bit like Summoning meets Finntroll meets, uh?."

Aahh. I see. Well, a whopping [300 dollars] is on the line. 'Black Metal' is your answer, is it? How do you think you did?

"Well, hell. You tell me."

[Pause for laugh track] We'll? [pause again for laugh track] ?we'll see how you did. He says 'Black Metal'? Survey says!

X

Ooooh. Tsk. Sorry, but that's not gonna cut it. Too bad. The two words we were looking for are 'Meh' and 'meh'?

...Well now, on you go. Exit's that way. Next week on Family Feud?.


[End transcript]

It's difficult to classify Claymore. Sure, they play metal, but that's like saying your grandma makes food. What kind of food? Black food? Death food? Power food? NWOBHM food? Good food? Your grandma's dead?

Claymore doesn't really play black metal, but their music has more blackish traits than, say, death metal. There's enough of a hop and a skip to it, though, and enough death metal hammering for black metallers to call on the "untrve" card in good faith. Indeed, some songs sound as if they would've been better placed in a Tim Burton movie.

So let's just, for the moment, say that they play melodic metal. There's a whole bunch of keyboards n shit. Some black metal fans?particularly fans of Summoning--should feel, if not at home, as if their visiting their grandma's Bulgarian cottage. They won't feel too out of place, even if what they're listening to isn't, conservatively speaking, "black".

One of the only words I can think of that'll suffice to describe Prolonged Active Antagonism is the uber-pretentious "quaint". It's got a charming, low-budget, old-fashioned aesthetic. Everything sounds cheap. Cheapness is krieg though, so that really isn't a problem. The problem is that, when visiting that old Bulgarian cottage, that old Bulgarian grandma simply won't stop feeding you melody. Yeah, sometimes it's tasty, but, for Christ's sake, one's had enough when he's had enough. Not to mention that some of it's burnt and greasy while some of it's just straight up undercooked.

But, needless to say, nanna isn't all she once was.

The synths, in Prolonged, which sound like mid-90's, Toys R Us synths, will gnaw at you endlessly. Assuming you can deal with this, Claymore's guitarist provides nothing but the most rudimentary, boring riffs: A triplet here, and a triplet there, brief melodic solo, and a triplet over there too, please.

I really don't respond much to keyboards in metal. But, if you do, and like some hippity-hoppity, Danny Elfman-esque tunes, Summoning, and take your death metal in short, underplayed bursts, you might well like Prolonged Active Antagonism. Otherwise, I found nothing in Prolonged worth writing a lengthy review about...


Rating breakdown
Performance: 6
Songwriting: 5
Originality: 5
Production: 6

Written by wormdrink414 | 07.05.2011




Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.


Comments

Comments: 1   Visited by: 40 users
08.05.2011 - 19:27
MechanisT
Account deleted
Interesting review. Out of the box to an extent. I like the experimentation.
As for the music, you've done a good job convincing me NOT to check them out.
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