“12 Years of Mass Murders” is actually a compilation album from the Norwegian Massemord, comprising of 13 tracks of “run of the mill” black metal with a few sparse and catchy heavy/hard rock overtones. Although the tracks are chronologically disparate (ranging from early 1994 to 2004) the unaided ear will fail to see any sort of compositional development between early and recent songs albeit the fact that there is a certain degree of musical variation. The majority of the tracks here fail to break away from the overall mediocre stature, compositions swerving between tastelessly unconvincing and satisfactory. There are a number of good moments though on this album, namely “Last days of snow” and “Den Svarte Skogen” which get my vote as far as ‘catchiness’ and overall song structure are concerned. Especially the latter stands out from the stale approach the rest of the album is incorporating, transcending the senses to past memories of old. From this album one can get the impression that although Massemord are aware of the artistic equation of black metal, that Immortal and Darkthone once put worth, they fall short in balancing it out. In other words although satisfactorily adept in some areas, they are unsuccessful in others leaving a monolithic and impassive result which most importantly lacks character. What really spoils the broth on this album though are the final two tracks (before the outro) which move on an Industrial bombastic combination of electronic/experimental synths and guitars which are completely devoid of any sort of black metal edge; I thought -- as advertised -- this was supposed to be black metal first and foremost. For the ones who are being acquainted to the band for the first time I suggest they browse through their early catalog instead.
(originally written for Tartarean Desire - 2005)
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