Sadist - Season In Silence

(10 Jan 2011)

I have recently noticed that many a death metal fan has become very stupid of late, and that mainly reflects on the score given to modern Death Metal releases. The DM fans will criticize what the genre has become for being an endless wankfest with all bands doing exactly the same thing, and then, if a band does anything remotely original, they will either criticize it for "not being Death Metal", or will say it's "some of the best Modern Death Metal out there" and give it a rating of 1.5 , without actually ever giving an explanation.

And this appears to be a rather recent occurrence, as is evident with the ratings being given to Sadist albums. The incoherent and boring mess Above The Light gets a stellar 3.86, every other album receives an adequate rating, and then Season in Silence inexplicably drops to 3.28 for no apparent reason, with the reviews mostly having a laugh at the "Evil Snowman" cover. The only actual reason I ever found for the general dislike of this release was "This is not Death Metal, therefore it's crap."

In fact, this can be generalized to ratings on RYM in general. People have talked of the "2010 syndrome" and how "2010 was possibly the worst year in music ever". I get the impression that the music really isn't to blame here, and the problem is the people who rate it. They seem to set certain objectives for the music they listen to and do everything they can to make sure no new music is able to accomplish them: If the music meets the objectives, it will be criticized for being the same as all other music. If it is original, it is criticized for not meeting the objectives, and if it meets the objectives whilst remaining original, it's probably pretentious or something.

As for Season in Silence, it is the most varied, interesting, original, and overall best album Sadist have released so far. They make incredible soundscapes with minimalistic instrumentation and achieve more than on any other album.

Standout tracks:

Aput
Broken And Reborn
Evil Birds
Night Owl
Snowman
Bloody Cold Winter