Review by SilentScream213 for Khanate - Khanate (2001)

A miserable, wretched experience – and that’s exactly what they were going for here. A fully realized Drone Metal album, Khanate use the genre to create some truly hideous soundscapes, wrought with dissonance, noise, fuzz and lethargy. The plodding drums create just enough of a foundation to contain the chaos, with guitars and whatever else being used liberally and dissonantly to create harsh noise. The vocals are another aspect adding to the hostility, being a horrid, raspy yell that delivers ridiculously creepy and abstract lyricism and about saws, skin and bones.

For the right person, I think this could be exactly what they’re looking for. I can understand the appeal, as someone who greatly enjoys the deepest despair brought by the sound of genres like Doom Metal. I will say the album is unique for its time as well; despite Drone Metal being around for some time by the turn of the century, very few bands were actually exploring or developing its sound, especially not as entire identities, which Khanate opt to do.

Unfortunately though, the sound here is entirely unenjoyable for me. It’s too dissonant and noisy, and the worst part is that there’s absolutely no counterplay or depth at all. Every minute is the same as the last, with one song being entirely indiscernible from another. The vocals, while having a certain “scary” intrigue at first, quickly become tiring. The lyrics are similarly boring due to being too abstract and repetitive, almost painting a horrifying picture but instead falling short and looking more like ai generated ramblings. I am thankful it has drums (Drone Metal without drums… really isn’t Metal to me!) but those drums do absolutely nothing. Which would be fine if the atmosphere was better, but it’s way too noise and texture oriented rather than mood oriented, which I strongly dislike.

Not for me.