Thou Shalt Suffer

Somnium (Candlelight)
by Scott Hefflon

Ihsahn and Samoth began Thou Shalt Suffer before Emperor. And while some of the 10 unnamed tracks here have scary/beautiful moments of traditional classical music, carnival-esque madness, or piano sadness, it’s really just a guy experimenting and playing around. Classical’s been done and much better (more cohesively, especially), and rolling, aimless “horror soundtrack” material has always seemed like a pretentious wank to me. Congrats to Ihsahn for being a musical explorer (what is it about Mortiis, Burzum, and all these other post-black metal guys doing “A troll walks through the dark woods” music?), but he shouldn’t take it personally if I feel he oughtta keep this stuff for his own personal enjoyment.
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