Gothminister – Pandemonium II: The Battle of The Underworlds
AFM Records
Release Date: 03/05/24
Running Time: 38:58
Review by Dark Juan
10/10
Greetings, dear friends. I am Dark Juan and I have been deprived of sleep from the tiny emotional dictator that is Mossy Boggart Rowan Grimshaw Cravensworth IV. It was daylight before Dark Juan even contemplated slumber because of the shit machine’s nocturnal shenanigans and Mrs Dark Juan exiled herself downstairs to the sofa as she was getting pissed off at my furious ranting at the hairy little parasite. He, the little fucking wanker, is now on the sofa next to me snoring his little fucking bastard head off.
It’s a good job he’s cute.
Combine the activities of the creature that frequently looks at me and sighs like he’s ever done a fucking day’s graft ever in his life and technology being all technological and you will see why my tone on this opening preamble is rather more combative than usual. I had seated myself at my pooter an hour before I had even the slightest opportunity to do anything, mainly because it had metaphorically shat itself and the driver for the soundcard had magically fucking disappeared, EVEN THOUGH NO FUCKER APART FROM ME EVER TOUCHES THE FUCKING COMPUTER AND IT HAD BEEN SWITCHED OFF FOR FOUR FUCKING DAYS! And has auto-update enabled. That required some extremely fatigued and very inept IT work and much swearing. Mrs Dark Juan is not allowed anywhere near it because of her Luddite electronic warfare field that knackers anything with microprocessors within a good 100 metre radius. Plus, we have discovered, she looks fucking amazing in a Victorian bonnet, which merely reinforces my personal suspicion that she is a child out of time and really should be ploughing a field behind a team of oxen, rather than asking me to fix her mobile phone every seven seconds as she has again managed to turn off the ringer without actually knowing how she has accomplished this.
Then the computer decided it needed to update itself. The fucking microchip-driven cunt.
It was with considerable ire, then, that I yanked the infamous Platter of Splatter ™ out of its cupboard and literally chucked the latest release from Norway’s Gothic Industrial Metallers Gothminister on it in a very bad-tempered fashion indeed. Then, because whichever deity is responsible for destroying my mental equilibrium is the most diligent twat in existence, metaphysical or otherwise, my headphone jack stopped working, which provoked more sulphurous oaths while I sorted that out. I can’t afford any new ones this month because I have spent all my spare money on a Eurovision outfit.
No, I’m not telling you anything else about it.
Yes, Gothminister. A band that has held a singular stranglehold on Dark Juan’s imagination ever since he heard ‘The Holy One’ in 2003 (a track from “Gothic Electronic Anthems”) and some of the most entertaining silliness I have ever heard – It is well known that Dark Juan fucking loves showmanship, gimmickry, and an absolute and having a distinct lack of concern about how you are perceived. See Ghost, Mushroomhead, Fractal Generator, They Watch Us From The Moon and the like, where image and backstory are combined into a slickly produced narrative of which the music is important and to the fore, but is an integral part of a whole package, frequently a multimedia one, and that sort of thing entertains the fuck out of Dark Juan.
Also, “Pandemonium II – The Battle of The Underworlds” is a companion piece/ prequel/ sequel to a previous Gothminister album called “Pandemonium”, unsurprisingly, and Dark Juan’s musing about it can be found by clicking this sexy link right here: https://www.ever-metal.com/2022/10/31/gothminister-pandemonium/ . In short, it was found to be very good.
Starting off with an absolute monster of a Gothic Industrial Metal track in ‘Battle of The Underworlds’, which throws the entire fucking kitchen, not just the sink, right into your unsuspecting face – Wistful female vocals? Check. Poppy, hook-laden and fucking Enormo-Dome colossal chorus that will be reverberating in your head until your death of old age? Fucking check and mate, mate. Stabbing, martial guitars backed by Gothic keyboards and jabby synth stabs? Yes indeed, that’s a massive fucking check, Major.
The band don’t really stray too far from the blueprint of that first song, really. Gothminister really have cornered the market in the kind of Gothic Industrial musical that slams right into Dark Juan’s pleasure centres and covers him in goose pimples and other physical attributes that you filthy perverts really don’t need to know about. All I will say is that this album is fucking brilliant insofar as there are many choruses I wish I had written. ‘I Am the Devil’ is a little bit of an outlier though, as the band forcibly mate “Psalm 69” Ministry with “Dark All Day” Gunship and send the poor, misshapen chimaera out there to scare the living shit out of anyone who claps their unfortunate eyes on it.
I did say, in the review that is linked above, that Gothminister is gloriously pompous, totally over-produced and overblown and epic in a way that Meat Loaf at his most sweaty and operatic couldn’t even touch. This album takes all previous Gothminister releases, notes what was ridiculously dramatic on them and amps that drama right up into hilarious Gothic melodrama that somehow manages to still be tremendously likeable and danceable as fuck and in parts stupendously heavy.
I fucking love Gothminister and I am not even slightly ashamed to say so. The midnight-black sense of humour, the knowing wink at his agog audience, the fact that they have taken the tropes of Gothic imagery and done something utterly unique and absolutely colossal in scope with them and turned them into some of the most entertaining, batshit music ever just makes me adore Gothminister even more. “Pandemonium II” is some of the best fun I have ever had with clothes on or off. And the music has also vigorously vivisected my visage.
Just don’t ask what I was doing naked in the graveyard on Walpurgisnacht when I was playing it, OK?
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System (Det patenterte Dark Juan blodsprut-vurderingssystemet, for mine nye legioner av norske venner. Hvis noen av dere faktisk leser tullet som Dark Juan skriver. Gothminister er strålende, gutter og jenter!) awards Gothminister 10/10 for an album that takes the madness from the previous album and brings it to ludicrous, glorious heights of entertainment. Dark Juan has been most thoroughly entertained and is indeed part of the ‘One Dark Happy Nation’!
TRACKLISTING:
01. Battle of The Underworlds
02. We Live Another Day
03. Creepy Shadows
04. One Dark Happy Nation
05. I Am the Devil
06. The Procession
07. I Will Drink Your Blood
08. Aftermath
09. Tonight
10. We Are the Heroes
11. Monostereo Creature
12. We Come Alive
LINE-UP:
Bjørn Alexander “Gothminister” Brem – Vocals
Eirik “Blodøks” Øien – Bass
Glenn “Icarus” Nilsen – Guitars
Ketil “Turbo Natas” Eggum – Guitars
Christian “Chris Dead” Svendsen – Drums
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.