BELOVED ANTICHRIST

Review # 81. This is one of the most difficult reviews I even had to write for many reasons. But I will try to do my best and be as objective as possible. A few weeks ago, the Swedish Symphonic Metal band Therion released its 16th studio album, which is a VERY ambitious (not to say pompous) piece of work. Beloved Antichrist is a Metal opera, based on Vladímir Soloviov's story "A Short Tale Of The Antichrist". The opera is separated into 3 acts (3CD's) and lasts over 3 and a half hours featuring 29 characters played by 29 singers.

As you can understand, one of the most important things about this album is the vocals. With so many different singers playing a big variety of roles, this is the thing you will notice first of all. Most of the singers have impressive voices and do an excellent job in their roles, but here lies one of the problems with this album. Because the impression I got is that this time the band seems to be a supplement to the opera, and not the other way round. It sounds like there are some musicians who are trying to support the singers and "dress" their voices with the music in the background. Another (big) problem is the length of the album. It is long, very long! 3.5 hours of Metal opera is not something easy to digest. It needs a lot of efforts and devotion in order to be able to appreciate what Therion are offering this time. First of all, you will have to stick to the story and try to follow the plot. Because otherwise, it is very difficult to understand what is going on. Speaking for myself, I tried to listen to the whole album 3 times, but didn't make it. So, I started playing each CD separately. I must admit that it worked better.

On the other hand, Beloved Antichrist is a very impressive album, including some very good songs, excellent guitar riffs, and great vocals! Maybe it's more opera than Metal, but that doesn't change the quality of it.

So, if you're looking for an experience in the perfect marriage of classical symphonic music and metal, you must look no further than this record. Put the album in your CD player, and get ready for the long journey that you're going to embark on. My Rating: 3.0 stars

There have been many attempts to blend rock with operatic styles over the years, with 'Tommy' being widely regarded as one of the most successful, but in truth that was much more of a rock musical than a real opera. Here Therion, or more accurately Christofer Johnsson, have created a three disc, three act opera, lasting somewhat over three hours. With some thirty singers, there are times when the music is opera, with or without some metallic influences, while at others it is more like symphonic metal. Overall, one has to say that it is an incredible achievement, totally subsuming metal into an operatic setting, and I am sure that they are incredibly proud of their achievements. It has worked so well that this is going to be performed in its entirety at various opera houses around Europe. There's only one problem for me, I don't like opera.

I can appreciate how clever this is, and if any band can claim to have moved more musically than Opeth it has to be Therion, but I just don't like it. True, it has been well recorded, the production and sound are great, and the layers are rich and complex, but while there are a few songs such as 'Never Again' which I enjoyed, they are very different to the album as a whole. I kept checking to see if the album was nearly finished, not initially realising that there are 46 songs here!

There are going to be many who acclaim this as an incredible work, and in many ways I agree with that statement, but just because it is incredible doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy it. When the album finished I had to wash out my ears with some Agoraphobic Nosebleed and Napalm Death just to feel cleansed and ready to face the next one. Yes, this is a true metal opera, or even an opera with metallic tendencies, but it just isn't for me and I wonder how many of their fans will feel the same?

Yes Vladimir Soloviov was a very good philosopher. But this circumstance cannot compensate the flaws of the new album by Therion. Three hours of nothing. And the worst is that it's after six years of silence. Formulaic, primitive and laborious melodic themes, template arrangements, uniform performance of drums in all the songs... Very long, very pretentious and extremely boring. I remember Therion's glorious times: Theli, Vovin, Deggial, Lemuria, Sirius B... But since then they follow the same musical standard and most likely have exhausted its potential. It's like a soil depleted of nutrients. Sounded interesting and even intriguing when listened for the first time... and for the second time... and even for the hundredth time! - but now, after multiple self-repetitions in Gothic Kabbalah and Sitra Ahra, it sounds second-hand and set the teeth on edge. Just occasional flashes of originality amidst the darkness of triviality. The excess of pomp in composition and - on the other hand - the lack of ingenuity in melody making is critical. It's almost impossible to bear as much as three hours of this music. It hardly deserves more than thirty five minutes, and it would be the best possible duration for an album of this sort, of course if such an album is at all needed.

In short, THIS ALBUM IS BORING AF! Read on if you want to know why

THERION has been around forever at this point at least by metal standards having formed all the way back in 1987 and made a name for itself in the early years by climbing the ranks of the Swedish death metal scene by incrementally releasing one slightly more experimental album followed by another. Some say that founder and creative mastermind Christofer Johnsson was seriously smitten after hearing the choral sections on Ozzy Osbourne's classic 1981 track "Diary Of A Madman." Randy Rhoads of course was one of the pioneers of the neoclassical sounds and had he not perished prematurely could've possibly been the mastermind of a band like THERION but it was Johnsson who saw the higher potentials of mixing classical music with heavy metal and well, the rest is pretty much history with a never-ending supply of metal divas rocking to Orff inspired Wagnerian pomp fortified by Iron Maiden guitar gallops.

The classic years of THERION started with 1996's "Theli" where the band suddenly dropped all death metal pretenses and went full on symphonic classical mode and in the process took the world by storm by taking the neoclassical shtick to the next logical level by incorporated massive symphonies, choirs and mining the opera catacombs of their wealth to incorporate dramatic vocal grandeur in a heavy metal context. The results sorta made your hair stand up as it was bold, refreshing and utterly unthinkable! The formula remained fresh and vital all the way up to the band's 13th album "Gothic Kabbalah" which was released in 2007. But then it seems everything started going down the ole crapper. Not only did the entire musical cast part ways leaving Johnsson to reinvent the band once again but the main man himself was suffering from the physical battles scars of the demands of live performances. He suffered intense neck and shoulder pain as well as spine disc herniations. Not only did he temporarily lose his ability to perform but seems all that divine inspiration that made THERION such a fan-damn-tastic band to experience just sorta up and left!

Starting with 2010's "Sitra Ahra" THERION was a completely new beast but all the vitality of the past had somehow disappeared with the rest of the band and suddenly for the first time it sounded like THERION was just going through the motions with a by-the-numbers generic delivery of been-there-done-that material. Obviously the wells of inspiration had run dry so Johnsson decided to take a stab at recording an album of classic French pop songs adapted to metal on 2012's "Les Fleurs Du Mal" which was a slightly more interesting albeit divisive endeavor albeit a far cry from the classic THERION years. With inspiration clearly waning Johnsson decided to finally unleash his ultimate end game vision of what THERION could be. While this project has always been about the gleeful fusion party where operatic divas and headbangers unite under one flag, nobody really considered THERION to haver released a true bona fide metal opera with OPERA in all capital letters.

After "Fleurs Du Mal" Johnsson focused on a side project called The Luciferian Light Orchestra which basically created a less metal version of "Gothic Kabbalah" which set the stage for the next project by THERION. Having had the idea to finally take THERION to its logical conclusion with a fully developed metal opera, Johnsson began working on what was meant to be his most ambitious project yet and in 2018 it finally came to light as the triple album set BELOVED ANTICHRIST which consisted of a whopping 46 songs based on "A Short Tale Of The Antichrist" by Vladimir Solviov. Somehow he forgot the "short" part of the tale and expanded the story to include 27 characters played by 15 vocalists and while this may sound a lot like what Arjen Anthony Lucassen has crafted in his project Ayreon, let's just say that this one doesn't quite live up to the hype.

The opera is described as a theatrical presentation in which a dramatic performance is set to music and originated at the end of the 16th century in Italy with many historians claiming Jacopo Peri's "Dafne" being the first example of 1598. That means there have been over 500 years of opera in existence. Some of the most popular examples are Monteverdi's "L'Orfeo," Purcell's "Dido And Aeneas," Handel's "Julius Caesar" and Gluck's "Orfeo Ed Euridice." Having dropped most of the metal characteristics of yore like an impotent headbanger who lost his viagra, this can only be considered a metal OPERA by the most fertile of imaginations but if you're looking for some juicy guitar riffs or anything resembling the band's past glory, your expectations will fall flatter than silicon boob job gone horribly wrong. This is an opera album through and through and not a very good one at that. Never have i heard 46 consecutive songs sound so mind numbingly bland in all my life. To be fair there is metal to be heard but it's so dreadfully dull and mostly absent with only a few tracks thrown here and there.

Needless to say THERION does nothing to add to the opera legacy not even by the tiniest despite limp noodle metal music being inserted into its format. This is basically a traditional opera in every conceivable way with only some rock and metal music being snuck in for the sake of calling this a metal opera. In reality this 3 album set is a chore to sit through but as a THERION fan i felt it was my duty to listen to the entire thing all the way through although with an initial sense of trepidation having a keen sense of what to expect. There are no metal vocal styles, only the traditional clean sung opera variations. The three albums are woefully paced with no rhyme or reason or any sense of dramatically buildups to some climax. Badly paced and woefully lacking any sort of interesting musical hooks, all THERION can do is retread past glories by piling on extra layers of fluff to create a false sense of achievement. Flatulent guitar riffs, incessant Pavarotti worship tenors and divas sounding like they need bowel movements endlessly persist for a staggering ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY THREE MINUTES :o

What we have here is an impressive piece of work but on paper only. Everything about this is impressive. Hell, just the fact that it exists is one for the history books but when all is said and done BELOVED ANTICHRIST is a three hour blackhole that sucks three hours out of your life never to be retrieved. If that isn't the ultimate act of evil, i don't know what is! In summary, the only thing that comes to mind when i struggled through this one is that the once mighty THERION has finally gone off the deep end. I could think of a million ways to make this boring dross more entertaining but it is literally the epitome of an opera set on autoplay with no end in sight. Despite all the talent and efforts that went into this one, it is utterly devoid of soul and the whole thing feels forced for the sake of its mere existence. I've never been a huge opera fan but at least when i do occasionally experience some of the classics i can feel the passion behind the creative process that went into them. In this case i only feel a band that has lost its way and gotten a distorted sense of grandeur that is attempted but woefully lost. Please, Christofer! Let it go! THERION needs to rest now. Hint hint. No! Mommy! Make it stop! AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Did i mention that THIS ALBUM IS BORING AF?