When I first heard about Watain, I was quite curious to know more about them. After all, hearing this about a band such as “the worst band of all time” and “the demise of yours ears” would likely inspire curiosity in anyone. I had heard similar descriptions of other bands prior to this, mostly pertaining to Dark Funeral, Drudkh, Gorgoroth, Antekhrist, Belphegor and other generic “orthodox black metal” acts, and was prepared to be disappointed.
Yet, all I really expected from Watain was another average “blackened” deathcore band rehashing what hundreds of other bands had already done before them. But after listening to The Wild Hunt, something I am now ashamed of ever considering doing, I now fully understand what those comments meant. This is literally the worst of mallcore crap masquerading as black metal. Without an ounce of shame.
What one might assume is that Watain is just another act hoping on the commercial black metal bandwagon, not so different in effect from Dimmu Borgir or Satyricon. While this assumption is technically correct, that is not the band’s true downfall. That would be the fact that the band members show not a trace of talent or creativity anywhere on The Wild Hunt, or anywhere else for that matter – both Casus Luciferi and Trident Wolf Eclipse are complete and utter shit.
The two Watain “guitarists” play generic deathcore riffs that have been written and re-written many times over. Drummer Håkan Jonsson, himself part of black metal’s “twink elite” according to interviews, does not know what the hell he is doing. All he seems to hit is the snare, which sounds like a plastic trash can, and I’ll admit it gets quite grating after a while due to the fact that it sounds as though he is banging on his trash bin with his mother’s dildo. Jonsson also cannot keep time very well, and goes off beat frequently, making the whole album sound disjointed. The bassist never makes his presence known, and might as well not be present for all he accomplishes. However, the absolute worst part of The Wild Hunt is the vocals, performed by one very cucked individual named Erik Danielsson.
Vocalist Erik Danielsson is very likely still making regular visits to the hospital for colon injury after recording this, as he seems to literally “shit out” his “vocals” – is the term even appropriate anymore? – more so than he exhales them. To get a picture of what his vocals sound like, imagine the sound a sick spongiform encephalopathy afflicted bovine animal would make while dumping its intestines out of its oversized rectum. Then imagine that coming out of someone’s throat – allegedly. Danielsson never once lets up with this style, and makes an already horrible album even worse by his anal (literally) performance. While many black metal vocalists are nigh-unintelligible, most at least sound as though they are trying to form words of some sort. All Danielsson’s vocals amount to is a bunch of senseless shitting feces and gurgling diarrhea, making it impossible to decipher a single word he says. Except for the clean singing on “They Rode On” – but that’s even worse than the shitting.
However, indecipherable lyrics are actually a mercy on this album. All the lyrics focus on are “Hail Satan” and references taken literally from the Bible, and other Hebrew literature. I thought black metal was, supposedly, the music of violent Viking Berserkers, not cucked desert goat-worshipers. Instead of sounding “occult” and menacing, the lyrics sound cucked and oddly homoerotic, especially when phrases like “Tall has grown thy shadow” and “In them, the shadows, we commit our deeds” are used. The songs are all written with the same formula of mid-paced blast-beats, awful shit vocals, long, tedious mallcore breakdowns – about five per song – and chugging, without any sort of variety.
The Wild Hunt can best be described as a perfect demonstration of Murphy’s law. Everything that could have been done wrong on an album such as this was done wrong. Unless you can perhaps find comedy in this shit band Watain, avoid it like the plague.
Sewerlust 
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