The amount of sub genres mentioned in the biog for this Swedish band whose name translates to Total Fucking Darkness, is quite varied; crust, punk, hardcore, sludge and most surprisingly black metal are all boxes that are ticked. Even more remarkable is the fact that all these aspects are touched upon in some way or another by both mood and musical style. Song titles and vocals are all in the groups native language and going through this track by track will mean getting the copy and paste buttons going into overdrive The themes, although I am sure they are all very negative in essence are lost in the translation, hell the band even describe the album title as meaning ‘divide et impera,’ on their website, so I guess ‘Divide And Rule’ is the most literal meaning of things.
This is angry, make no mistake and it throws up 12 tracks in your face in under 40 minutes and this works well as far as I am concerned as the other ‘apocalyptic’ sounding discs that have all suddenly landed in my lap at once are all a bit too long for their own good. This rages and throws doom laden riffs along with crusty hardcore vocals and does so without mercy. The second number for example has a vocal assault and pace reminiscent of Discharge but by the time the pace slows on the third track with cataclysmic guitars scything and lurching away I am reminded more of the sound of Nachtmystium than anything else. This is made more apparent by the shuddering drone aspects and chugging guitars as we go into the album further and you can imagine a marriage of bands like Wolves In The Throne Room, early Neurosis and Altar Of Plagues all having a jam together.
They do play it straight occasionally and just let loose with a fetid crusty number that grinds along and spits out contempt with little in the way of trimmings but the variation of the album in general makes it all more intriguing and interesting. I do wonder how much of a progression this is from the bands last self titled album from 2006 and this is all the more annoying as I recognise the album cover for that one but cannot find the disc or review of it so am guessing it slipped through my fingers and had the honours done by another scribe, I would very much like to hear it now though.
Totalt Jävla Mörker have been going for a while now, looking at their list of gigs, the first mentioned is back in 2002 was on the same bill as Entombed, Cult Of Luna and Vintersorg (that must have been one hell of a show). Despite the fact they are probably not well known in places such as the UK they have the scope to appeal to many and hopefully being on a label like Regain could give them the push they need to propel them to a wider audience. This is certainly worth checking out.
http://www.totaltjavlamorker.com
http://www.myspace.com/totaltjavlamorker
