What do yo do when the graphics and packaging are more compelling than the music? The doom genre has been pushed well passed it's logical conclusion, subdivided into micro-doom genres and then those have been pushed to the end of the cul de sac. Footnotes on footnotes, Styles based on fragments or single songs from other bands. Several bands catering to each micro-niches. If you have heard Sleep, Burning Witch, Corrupted, Electric Wizard etc how many more variations do you need? Sabbathy, Glacial, Harsh, Drone, Funeral, etc, Never mind if you have checked out doom fore fathers like Pentagram and Black Widow or Cathedral and Trouble depending on your age. Outside of increasingly lavish packaging and limited runs, what is the motivator to keep going? You can keep adding O's and M's to the reviews but its still the same DOOMMMM.
And then there's black metal. On most releases the band photos and graphics are more exciting than the music. Mirco-genres are created and duplicated at a dizzying pace with very little worth listening to twice. If there is always a need for opening bands for Tuesday nights in shitholes across america, it makes sense for the redundancy, but do they all need to make records?
So the labels seem to push the envelope on packaging and collectabilty, but who will want these things in a few years when everyone is selling them? "Limited" only matters when demand exceeds supply. If the goal was to make good music instead of genre music, maybe their would be more memorable records.
And if you want to be the best "in the style of..." band why not just play shows and not waste people's time with records that don't cover any new ground?
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