Striborg's debut was actually a decent ambient/black metal album, but after that, mostly every release ranged from either amateurishly bad and boring to outright ridiculous and pathetic. Fortunately, or unfortunately for those of you expecting even more lulz from Striborg, Southwest Passage is Sin Nanna's best since Spiritual Catharsis and manages to push itself to almost being decent. Almost.
Well, if you've heard any Striborg's, or any other depressive, extremely low-fi black metal, you know what to expect. Thin, hissing guitars, like razors against your ear drums, occasional synth section to put the "ee" in eerie, and extremely sloppy drum work and production. Intended for all misanthropes who hate anything that doesn't have a tail or branches, Southwest Passage is entirely run-of-the-mill, color-by-number, build-by-pattern stuff. What Sin Nanna probably tried to do was to play Hansel and Gretel with the listeners. He wanted to take you by the hand, and dump you in the deepest, darkest godforsaken forest he could find, so that you can spend an eternity in solitude.
Did he succeed? After the first track, I let go of my forever pessimistic view and said: "Yes!" For the first time, Striborg did not sound like shit. The opening track has everything one could ask from a song representative of this genre: ominous tone, a melancholic mood bordering on pure depression and, of course, the obligatory "frog taking a gigantic dump" vocals. Unfortunately, if there is anything metal and most other music teaches you, it's that you should never trust the first track. After the opener, mostly everything other than the charmingly bad vocals was gone. Run-o-the-mill riffs ensued, and boredom followed. Not that there weren't any interesting moments at all, but all completely pale in comparison to the opener and almost none manage to completely fulfill their mission. You know, the Hansel and Gretel one.
Those
