Hrizg – Individualism (Moribund Records)
Tuesday, 27th May 2014
This is one of those occasions when it’s embarrassing to be in the vicinity of someone who’s being obnoxiously over-expressive by putting extreme stress into trying to show the world what they consider to be their sense of individualism. To make matters worse, one of these individualistic demonstrations is directly called Individualism. On the account of Spain’s Hrizg, this is what happens when individualism goes too far.
You can judge this album it by its cover because the half-octopus morphed with the tree of life is a clear warning sign of the personalized-type product that it is. It’s funny how people make infatuations into expressions of individuality. If they’d just take a brief tour down a college art gallery or tattoo parlor, they’d see how many people also feel unique by identifying themselves with a persona that’s compiled of ideas that quickly became inane and cliché due to the very fact that there are copious amounts of these not-so-individual personality types. No kidding, half the drawings in a college art gallery are some variation of a half-Octopus, half tree. Octopuses are cool and all, but seriously, what’s up with this generation’s tentacle fetish?
A nihilistic one-man black metal band like Hrizg could do better than this. Through and through, the vocals sound like a grumpy guy, and that’s about it. Having ire in a metal voice is one thing, but how the vocals come out on recording is far more important. There’s nothing new or exciting going on with the instruments either, just the average black metal-orientated guitar, bass, and drums. Generally, if you can play black metal, you can match Hrizg.
As much as there are a lot of us who don’t appreciate, nor care, for contemporary fads being merged into one big thing like in Individualism, there’s probably also an ample group of people who’d totally dig this for that very same reason. Either way, with all this individualism, Hrizg were asking for trouble, or in this case, were practically begging for a bitchy review. On the bright side, there’s always room to improve or try something else.
Moribund Records official site
