Stop reading this review and just start listening to the album. The more you know about it beforehand, the less appealing it becomes, until you actually listen to it. The best approach is to dive in blind and then be completely flabbergasted at what the record is throwing at you. Here, I'll even post the Bandcamp embed early:
Ok, you're back?
So let me explain what you just witnessed. This was UK raw black metal act Spider God. A newcomer by all means, another one-man band from Bandcamp, but one already having moderate success, getting their EPs and splits released by some labels. So it's not like Spider God isn't a tried and tested raw black metal act, and I do recommend you also check out The Interior Castle after this one for an amazing slab of ambient black metal. But those were all splits and EPs. Black Renditions is the project's first full length. So how does this act decide to take this step?
Let's compare Spider God with one of their peers, a band they actually released a split with. Μνήμα has only released splits, EPs and demos until now, and they released their debut album, Disciples Of Excremental Liturgies, this year. That album is pretty much a huge slab of raw noisy black metal with ugly production and an absolutely kvlt title and sound. Spider God go the complete and opposite route and shed all possible and plausible chances of ever having any kvlt credibility henceforth. Black Renditions is a covers album. A pop covers album. A cover albums covering acts like Britney Spears, Spice Girls and The Backstreet Boys.
Obviously, no black metal in their right mind would write those lyrics, so even if you're listening to this album with no prior knowledge and you somehow don't know any of the original songs, you might have the slight feeling that something odd is at play, when you hear a bit too much sugar in those melodies, and someone is shrieking about being so excited and not being able to hide it, or how they wanna dance with somebody who loves them. "Suspiciously unkvlt" one would say. But if Këkht Aräkh warmed us up to romantic black metal, maybe lyrics like that are not taboo in black metal for long. There are moments where it's quite clear that things don't really gel together in transposing the pop melodies into black metal, but for everyone of those, there's a thousand moments where you're in awe at how well it gels. The arrangements are stripped and energetic, the melodies pack a punch, the vocals are raspy, but they're definitely clear enough that you can get the vocals.
It's almost like they saw how the pop world treated metal that Metallica tribute album and decided to enact their revenge. The only difference is that Black Renditions has a sense of humor and a clear vision, so it's actually worth listening. The covers here are especially selected for their outrageousness, trimmed to make sure nothing gets over 3 and a half minutes at most, and morphed into melodic black metal. And what is the most frightening of all of this, is that there's plenty of moments where it works too well for me not to ask myself some questions about the common melodic nature of pop and black metal. Maybe... maybe they're not so different after all.
The funny thing is, I knew most of these songs, but there were a few who I wasn't familiar with. But just hearing this black metal rendition of them was enough for them to get caught in my head. And they sound black metal. So if you're making a black metal album and the melodies don't get stuck in my head, it's not because they're black metal, it's because they're not good enough.
And the point that I wanna end on, is that Black Renditions' greatest achievement is not the marrying of pop and black metal, or any conclusions about each of those genre's essences that one can make after seeing one act as a foil for the other. No, Black Renditions' greatest achievement is that it's so incredibly fun and enthusiastically inviting in a way that few albums manage to. This is a fun time, and you are invited. Sing along!
