Originally written by Jeremy Garner
With the much publicized rebirth of Dissection there has been a prodigious amount of debate and speculation about the resulting effort, and here I sit listening to the disastrous result. I know the single Maha Kali wasn’t Dissection’s finest moment, but many including myself still held out hope for a proper return to the fray rather than their new found anti-cosmic metal of death…ooooh…that sounds evil. I’m not too impressed, nor am I really convinced anyone is going to give two shits about it after this hits the shelves.
The album actually opens quite nicely on the call to arms, “Nexion 218” with its ominous melody and climactic, march like tension, heralding their next offer “Beyond the Horizon”. Despite being one of the more interesting songs rhythmically Dissection fails to fully deliver or adequately develop any of the musical ideas that might have offered a glimpse of passing interest. Hate to admit it folks, but the next track is not only the highlight of the album, but the only passable song I would ever actually recommend subjecting yourself to more than once. “Starless Aeon” is catchy as hell and employs some well-versed use of Swedish melody, but there’s not a whole lot of substance to be found. Though the song has some decent musical ideas they seem underdeveloped, rushed and slapped together without any attention to detail whatsoever.
To its advantage, Reinkaos features a very distinctive, somewhat mystical, occultic atmosphere that I’m sure is an active reflection of Nödtveidt’s affiliation with the Misanthropic Luciferian Order on some level, but this doesn’t save the album from claiming its place as the biggest disappointment of 2006. By this point it becomes increasingly clear that besides the occasional glimpse of a time passed, there’s very little that really ties them to black metal anymore. I’d feel more comfortable calling this extremely polished commercial death unbelievable far removed from anything resembling Dissection’s original blend of melodic black metal. In fact, the only discernable connection to the original Dissection is Nödtveidt himself.
Reinkaos starts with material that is at best adequate, but the quality of composition drops to a barely tolerable level of fucking horrible. “Black Dragon” with all its over emotional lead guitarwork just oozes an underserved sense of accomplishment that’s literally friggin sickening. The traditional tinged “Dark Mother” makes newer Soilwork, In Flames and even Atreyu look not just brutal, but talented. I’ve heard emo with more bite than these two failed ventures, nor does it help that the drag ass tempos of both songs fail to pull the excitement level over much more than a line at the DMV.
Readers might be familiar with “Leper D set” as the rough mix was posted on their site a while back, but I found it to spend too much time glorifying itself with the same boring riffs and predictable harmonies Dissection have seemed to resign themselves to. At the very least its not as much of a train wreck as half of the eleven songs are. Though 90% of the album brings a whole new level of suck to the metal community, the instrumental “Chaosophia” is a welcome break of decent classical influenced guitarwork and competent musicianship before the next big letdown, “God of Forbidden Light”. This one actually sounds like a cross between Arch Enemy and every band that’s ever botched the Stockholm or Gothenburg death sound in an unfavorable way.
The only proper song (the last instrumental barely warrants the title) I could actually stand after the opening triumvirate is coincidentally the next instrumental. “Reinkaos” is probably the closest the album ever comes to black metal with the continuation of classically influenced guitar work spiraling around various melodic ideas and expanding each idea through well-intended solos.
The new material of the album is quickly put to an end with the slowed down thrash based musings of “Internal Fire” that does little more than regurgitate the same shit you’ve heard for the past half hour. “Maha Kali” is just as unappealing as the initial time I was exposed to it, despite its catchiness, but at least now I can make the informed judgment that it was in fact, one of the only decent moments to be found on Reinkaos.
The sound is the clearest and thickest of any past Dissection release, but Reinkaos comes across as clinical because each instrument sounds oddly disjoined and pasted together instead of an effective wall of sound or even a coherent musical collaboration that frames one distinctive vision, not that I’m exactly pleased with the musicianship. That and where the bloody hell is the bass? I know its in the mix somewhere but the album lacks low end and consequently suffers from a sound that lacks foundation.
I still can’t believe that’s actually Tomas Asklund (ex-Dark Funeral) handling “battery”.
The expected use of blast beats is completely lacking and the presence of double bass work is phenomenally infrequent. His talents are reduced to basic rock beats any beginner has mastered by now and the horrendously redundant repetition of the tried and true kick drum hit on the beat with the snare sounding on the offbeat. All this mind boggling complexity is spiced up with the occasional pointless fill marking the dawn of a riff change. Hopefully, Set(h) Teitan wasn’t involved too heavily with the songwriting process. I held a lot of respect for his work with Aborym but his involvement in Dissection is disappointing and extremely lacking compared to his involvement in past endeavours. At the very least Jon’s vocals sound fine, not really weakening in any meaningful way during his hiatus. Thankfully, he opted to keep the traditional black metal snarl, but his knack for constructing an interesting song is long dead as the guitar bleeds together in a undistinguished blur of upstrokes and musically proficient, but ultimately uninteresting solos
Where did they go wrong? With such a strong lineup, how the hell did it go astray? With the credentials behind each member I would have expected something of better quality, but Dissection have resigned themselves to a terrible performance relying on linear progressions and a sense of overbearing predictability because due to uber simplicity and the capitalization of safe, unadventurous ideas with the extreme omission of enjoyable moments. Does anyone else realize that Nödtveidt had a year to write each of these songs and that three of them are instrumentals? Honestly I find it insulting to the audience to actually believe that Reinkaos would be well received or considered at all acceptable.
I don’t mean to drag a respected bands name through the mud for my own personal enjoyment, its just that I’m going to need more than just a few drinks to get over the initial gut-wrenching disappointment. My extreme feelings of betrayal about the paradigm shift on Reinkaos run deep. I’m sure there’s a few out there who can approach this release as a different band altogether and still derive some enjoyment, but I however, cannot. Dissection ended in eleven years ago with Storm of the Light’s Bane as far as most fans and I are concerned. Its not that I could only have appreciated an album in the old vein, (I understand a decade passing can change people in drastic ways. Its not like I was expecting a continuation of The Somberlain) the problems on Reinkaos run deeper than my distaste for a decade of change. Fear the return…yeah right.
