Snailmageddon - Swansong for a Snail

Swansong for a Snail

Snailmageddon is a one-man-band of Epic Black Metal, with a crazy universe, as hinted by its bandcamp's biography:

From Sweden in a cabin surrounded by dark woods and badgers, wild fearsome badgers, all of SnailMageddons creations comes to life. If you stand there late at night you can sometimes hear a haunted whispering spreading throughout the forest like mist, "The end has come, the SnailMageddon has begun".

It's indeed Metal, Black for sure, Epic as well, with some touches of Death, backed by Folk, but with a healthy dose of wtf!

Nines tracks telling the epic tale of fire-breathing geese, unholy Snailnomicon, treacherous pigs, sick disco moves, raven versus swan dogfight, ranged battles of fox and badgers versus snails, children-based soap creation, love and sorrow. The album ends with a glorious cover of Sailor Moon and an other one of Cambodia!

Black Metal albums are traditionally recorded in a Formula One pit, using a phone's microphone duck-taped to a broken fan shoved inside a metallic barrel, and mixed on a Fisher Price tape recorder by someone wearing boxing gloves sitting on a tarmac, before being blended with a copious amount of white-noise, Larsen, and various lossy filters. At least, this is how 𝔱𝔯𝔳𝔢 𝔟𝔩𝔞𝔠𝔨 𝔪𝔢𝔱𝔞𝔩 is supposed to be produced. But fortunately, it's not the case here: the production is clean, textured and layered. Bright synths, choruses, symphonic elements like flutes and strings, a ton of folk instruments, unexpected chunks of bizarreries, yet nothing feels out of place. Some tracks are truly epic and powerfully orchestral, like "Swansong for a Snail", while other are more folks'y, like "Raven Tamer and the Swan Rider", sounding a bit like Ensiferum's "Magic potion", …

All in all, the whole album sounds like a weird, refreshing and engrossing old tale, beautifully shrieked recounted in a Black Metal-ish way and backed by a orchestra of traditional instruments. All hail the kingdom of Snails!