### HOD: Serpent

#### 22/07/09 || Smalley

I’m no fanatic for it, but I do enjoy my black metal pretty well; thing is, HOD is no where near a good example of it. Their songwriting on “Serpent” is way too directionless, with droning, black metal songs that pound away and away at your interest level, songs that start and go no where, songs that all too-often lack decent drives and hooks. Generally, the best metal albums will leave you with tons of awesome parts that stick in your memory, parts you can replay in your head almost as easily as you could do in reality on your iTunes; I got next-to-none of that sort of thing here. There’s just no way I get my grimness on to this boring crap! And that damn awful drum production; for some reason, HOD gave their percussion that annoying, clanking, taunting sound that I so hate in metal, the sound I can hear way too well over the commotion of the vox/guitars, and even worse, the drummer never shuts up, so it only got more and more annoying the longer I had to listen to it. The guttural vocals get pretty annoying too (though not as bad as the drums did), and only add another knock against this album.

Really, the sparse lead work is the only thing I can compliment here at all, as it is kind of decent, but even that isn’t very good, and in no way makes up for the awful drum sound anyway, or improves the aimless, boring songwriting, or any other flaw here. And look at the band themselves! The clothes are pretty black metal, but the makeup? Raccoon eyes?!? Faux domino masks sure are black metal, you betcha. Plus, the poses of the two guys in front aren’t black metal at all, and make them look like douches, especially the guy who looks like he’s holding/stroking a gigantic penis (plus, the Dawn Of The Dead shirt isn’t cool either, since shilling movies certainly isn’t black metal, though the late, great Cliff Burton wore one, but he was a thrasher anyway). The band even talks like posers too (taken from The Metal Archives): “As far as any confu​sion with the band name Hod, it is not an acronym.​ We do not spell​ it H.​O.​D.​ We spell​ it Hod. It is the Engli​sh versi​on of the Norse​ god Hodur​.​ He is the blind​ god of darkn​ess and winte​r.​ He was put to death​ by the gods for unint​entio​nally​ killi​ng Baldu​r.​ We have now taken​ the myth furth​er by sugge​sting​Hod is now a venge​ful god for the fate that besto​wed on him. He sits in hell plott​ing and condu​cting​ his reven​ge.​​.​. the blind​ god seeks​ vengeance. We are but his voice”.

Whatever dude; it’s no surprise with this sort of posery going on that your music sucks too! What you have here is basically a bunch of black metal toddlers all banging their black metal pots and pans at the same time, so I can’t think of a reason to recommend this even to fanatics of the genre; just avoid “Serpent”. Just avoid it. And fix that damn drum sound if you want the slightest chance of ever being good, HOD!

- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: Ibex Moon
- Website: www.ibexmoonrecords.com
- Band
- Beer Reebs: vocals
- Bjorn Haga: guitar
- Carl Snyder: guitar
- Derrik Rivers: bass
- Dennis Sanders: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Victims
- 02. Ritual Of Vengeance
- 03. God Of Darkness And Winter
- 04. Nine Days
- 05. Demoralizer
- 06. Harbinger Of Death
- 07. The Serpent Of The Nightmare Empire