RBOTD #193: Neglektum
Neglekting its better impulses
https://www.metal-archives.com/band/view/id/3540285941
Country: Sweden
Location: Västerås, Västmanland
Genre: black metal
Formed in: 2008
Status: active
By the Numbers
Neglektum is the:
74th band formed in the 2000s
Seventh band from Sweden
103rd band that is active at the time of querying
Its genre tags have been seen:
Black: 53 times
Member Connections
Neglektum is a bandalone.
Know 'Em?
Nope. I am now 10/193.
Sketch Check
I didn't look too deeply into the label, but I think the band is fine.
RateYourMusic Scores
Neglektum's highest-rated album is 2014's Blasphemer, which achieved a 2.68 average on 14 ratings.
The adjusted score places Neglektum in the 20th percentile.
Adjusted scores are calculated similarly to the Trad Belt scoring system. Please read that column for more information.
Trifecta Tracker
Neglektum has not achieved the trifecta.
A band can achieve the trifecta by titling a song after itself on a self-titled release. Iron Maiden's "Iron Maiden" on 1980's Iron Maiden is an example of the trifecta.
In my most annoying Punk Rock MBA voice: What killed Wolf's reviewing career?1 Well, once I aged out and extinguished the firebrand side of my personality, I hit a wall and didn't know what to write about these kinds of bands anymore.2 That is to say, Neglektum, a Swedish black metal duo when it recorded 2014's Blasphemer, is decent. It's lightly Dissection-y like a lot of bands. It's swathed in an appropriately evil atmosphere like a lot of bands. It's more or less competent like a lot of bands. Is it great? No. Is it bad? No. It's decent. None of that makes for compelling copy.3 You can't get a lot of mileage out of decent. Views-magnet hot takes don't typically contain the words "potential" and "fine" unless that take is "I hate Skillet so much I am facing a potential fine."Â
Years later, I still don't know how to write decently about decent bands besides scribbling that the fleeting moments setting Neglektum apart are also what makes it frustrating. For instance, the second half of the nearly nine-minute title track, which also serves as the album's opener, ends with a wonderful melancholic aural migration. Azargoth's vocals take on a strangled DSBM desperation. The riffs build, and then an expressive solo cuts through the haze. It's the best four minutes on the record. Unfortunately, the band fails to repeat it. Maybe that section works for that very reason, the crescendo made richer by the formulaic songs that follow it. But there's also a nagging sense that Azargoth and Isedor could just be doing that…all of the time. Nope, back on the path. Back to second-rate Dissection. Back to decent. You feel cheated even though Neglektum holds up its end of the bargain as a replacement-level black metaller. You wish the terms were different.
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Besides being a generally terrible writer who used to file 3,000 words no matter the subject.
Guessing the industry didn't either. It has moved to a list-based coverage model that prioritizes what writers like. The idea of writing about something you have no real feels for simply because it was submitted for coverage is now ultra-antiquated, like something people did between witch burnings. It's probably for the best, but there was a particular thrill when a writer was forced to contend with something so far out of their comfort zone.
You can tell when reviewers have been in the game for a long time because reviews suddenly become a vessel for working out stuff happening in their lives. Either consciously or not, you write about your own pressing issues, trying to untangle them under the guise of whether the nth band that sounds like Dark Funeral is bringing anything interesting to the table. Hearing Karina Longworth digging into 40-year-old movie reviews in this season of You Must Remember This has been particularly enlightening. So few of the reviews seem to engage with the movies. Instead, it's like everyone was reviewing the cultural context and responding to their own hang-ups.