Review Summary: An unnecessary afterthought that serves no function for either artist or the listeners, or alternately, affirmation of everthing you thought both these bands symbolized, but worse.
So now that 2010's passage has brought us the unlikely split between Panopticon (Austin Lunn) and Cascadian black metal band Skagos, I've realized that I really don't see the point to any of it. I mean Lunn's already established himself in the field of atmospheric black metal with his well-placed yet appropriately cheesy use of programming and at times, folksy elements - both of which contribute to his undeniable persona. Yet Skagos has unrepentantly molded to every nook and cranny in the narrow confines of their genre. Like they did on their debut,
Ast, they pull out acoustic passages like there's no tomorrow, and they plod along with little determination as though such a technique was atmospheric, when in actuality it's trite, tired and boring as sh
it. And their lack of songwriting capabilities only further their problems because for all that plodding and unnecessarily long track lengths, hardly a second of it is interesting. When dynamics are used it interrupts the momentum of the tracks and oftentimes it reveals the very worst parts of Skagos's sound. The shrieks sound like an afterthought because they crackle and creak with little motivation and the rest of the musicianship is so terribly predictable due to Skagos's reluctance to bring anything new to the table.
In essence, what Skagos does here is completely expected. They continue to redefine what is Cascadian black metal's "standard-fare" by crafting the derivative-as-all-f
uck music that
Ast displayed, but this time in a smaller portion, which is certainly a good thing, because at this length Skagos's side of the split acts not as a dagger to the neck, but a double-edged sword. That's to say that Skagos's existence on this split is solely to make Lunn's side look better in comparison.
Think of it as Portia de Rossi's Ellen DeGeneres - undeniably worse looking, more awkward and in the spotlight despite being deceptively dull and a disgrace to media as a whole. Now while this may seem like a misrepresentation of both parties and a hyperbolic metaphor, I assure you that it's not. Comparably, Panopticon's side is an opus in the field of black metal, and for a while this alone makes it seem like this split is almost worth your time, but after a few listens Lunn too fails us listeners.
You see, his attempts at infusing his established sound with a more depressive feel doesn't make it seem more engaging or emotionally gratifying in the slightest, instead, his shrieks are equally as strained as Skagos's (but brought out much louder than you'd expect in the mix, mind you) and his textures are monotonous and boring. Ambience to him comes off as a lifeless drone, which is upsetting because on past releases his cold textures almost came across as amniotic. This quality made his sound so enveloping because it swallowed you whole in some metaphorical orb of atmosphere, and its absence is sorely missed on this split. To add insult to injury he does an alarming amount to peg it as depressive with his continued reverence for nature, the loud shrieks and the churning guitar chords. But when he attempts to pull off any sort of sonic texture he fails blandly because it sounds so diaphanous that it makes me wonder whether his intention was for the listeners to slunk into a meditative slump or if it was for them to claw their eyes out of boredom.
He tries his hand at folksy chants and string arrangements on "A Message to the Missionary" but the strings moan without much conviction, and instead of forming a bleak atmosphere as intended, the execution of these ideas comes out muddled and boring. Not necessarily bad but so inoffensive and pathetically mediocre that its hard to sit through it all. And then, on "Watching You," he strays from both his roots and his intentions herewith blustering distortion, and against all logic, it sounds as threadbare as previously explained. And his cold tones drone on and on without much purpose on the rest of these tracks, which is sad because those who've given his previous works a listen know that he's able to pull of this melancholic thing, but for whatever reason he's completely incapable of sounding depressive or even mildly engaging here no matter how hard he tries to be both.
Still, these examples of mediocrity are far better than Skagos's god-awful, uninspired and unsurprisingly boring Cascadian black metal, but there seems to have been no point to this split. And this is what makes it such a failure. It's not even so much how abysmal Skagos's attempts at constructing an atmosphere are or Lunn's undoubtable misfire. It's that the split won't change anyone's mind about Skagos nor will it ever be an even mildly important part of Lunn's discography due to how flawed both outrageously dull contributions are. My advice is to pretend this never even happened. It doesn't exist, so close your eyes and hopefully it will just go away. You heard me, piss off.
