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This is one of the most assaultive, addictive albums around, a rip-roaring journey through sonic violence that will leave most quivering in the corner and others (a special few) totally enraptured.
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Blackjazz, by contrast, is fierce and unrelenting, a slavering beast of an album with the complexity and dissonance of the Flying Luttenbachers and the head-down intensity of upstate New York ultra-power trio Borbetomagus.
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In the case of Blackjazz, Shining spreads lyrical passages across songs, repeats song titles with different music attached: they basically create an environment that can only be understood as a whole.
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Shining is a rare case these days, a progressive-minded band with the desire to push boundaries with each record yet with enough discipline to know just how much is too much, and with Blackjazz, this band is starting to peak.
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Shining are combining jazz and metal in original ways, from the filling up of jazz's precious empty spaces with ticking nervous energy to the replacement of metal's vocal aggression with creepy and disconnected noise. And if that's not the same as true originality, it's close enough.
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while on a different album “Healter Skelter” might have been a wonderful bridge between some of the more structured stuff Shining used to do; on Black Jazz it’s just the most weird and interesting version of the same track we’ve already sat through three times.
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When Shining go technical, they do so with a flourish, but often seem too eager to return to the simpler crowd-pleasing verses and choruses that make up the meat of the album.
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Equally experimental as it is disturbing, their latest musical experience doesn’t disappoint and is an altogether leftfield and very noisy affair.
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Blackjazz was produced by Sean Beavan, who has worked with Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails, and its sound skews dark but a bit cartoonish.
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Theirs is a career of true progressiveness, in every sense of the word. What was hinted at in parts on 2007's Grindstone has been, bettered, battered and even bludgeoned. Chalk up another one for Norway, then.
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Blackjazz is an undoubtedly bold statement from an incredibly gifted compositional genius. Munkebey has been working toward this album for a while, and it is a real achievement in synthesis of the band's overriding influences.
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Adventurous listeners ignore Blackjazz at their peril, but be warned that there's quite a bite of filler to go with the killer.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 25 out of 36
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Mixed: 4 out of 36
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Negative: 7 out of 36
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Apr 24, 2011
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Nov 10, 2010