Teslathrone - Railgun

Teslathrone

Railgun

by H.P. Buttcraft at 01 June 2014, 4:02 AM

Somewhere in Minsk, Belarus, three people decided to conduct an experiment but adding digital technology to Black Metal, calling themselves TESLATHRONE (a play upon the band name DARKTHRONE) on their debut album “Railgun”. As you may have expected, the results of this experiment have gone horribly wrong. What we have instead of a futuristic grimness like what you would hear on a DARKSPACE album, what we get is music that is most-certainly not Black Metal. Even the BURZUM cover seems to have sucked all of the “kvlt” out of that song and filled the empty scrotum that was “Lost Wisdom” with techno beats. Ever-lovin’ techno beats! Screw anybody that does something like that and then looks you in the face and tell you that’s Black Metal. Sorry, that is not nor will it ever be Black Metal! Put on an album from INQUISITION if you want to hear Black Metal. If you listen to this album to hear Black Metal, you are being cheated.

The only Metal band I would ever compare this to would be THE KOVENANT but when you listen to “Railgun”, it’s obvious that TESLATHRONE is more KMFDM than MAYHEM. This album is more for lovers of industrial metal or the band BLOOD STAIN CHILD but I just think its pretentious front that they are Black Metal is absurd.  Black Metal & Dubstep? NO! Black Metal & EDM? NO! Black Metal & Drum and Bass? NO AND NO! The only “Metal” elements on this record come from the guitar and bass and nothing else. There’s no use in appreciate the intricacy of the drum techniques because they’re purely digitized and programmed to be flawless and devoid of dynamics or atmospheres like real Metal drums tend to successfully do. Perhaps the popularity of these insider genres (Drum n Bass, Dubstep, EDM & IDM) were built from its very core to not appeal to darker or more aggressive attitudes because they are not considered by the majority to be a sign that you are having a great time. By clashing these two together, TESLATHRONE comes off as ludicrous and completely facetious to both styles clash together and result in shrug-inducing breakdowns on “Time Trouble” or the awkward, uncomfortable feeling about how you should perceive this experiment when you hear “Generator”.

I can imagine how much fun it must’ve been coming up with these songs. But really this sound is not really all that innovative. When I drew the comparison between TESLATHRONE and KMFDM earlier on, let’s recognize that KMFDM was making music since the late 1980’s. Since then, the world has watched in awe as bands like MINISTRY, RAMMSTEIN, SKINNY PUPPY, STABBING WESTWARD, I almost forgot about NINE INCH NAILS… the Industrial Rock / Metal experiment has been conducted again and again for soon-to-be thirty years, now. What TESLATHRONE brings to the table is exactly what the title of one of the songs off of this album says poetic; an “Endless Headache”.

Industrial Metal has moved so far beyond what you can simply control over a laptop computer. The splicing of niche genres like what I’ve heard on the “Endless Headache”, “Railgun”, TESLATHRONE do not offer anything useful to Black Metal and I cannot say they offer much to Industrial either. I think the concept was interesting enough to experiment with but I won’t anticipate another TESLATHRONE album in the future.