“Sing it in your heart! More and more you look at me!”
“Diggy Diggy Hole” rocks, but it’s got a lot to answer for. If you’re too young to remember the 2012-14 slump in dwarf popularity (thanks, Peter Jackson) you might not realise the extent that the Wind Rose cover has rehabilitated the dwarf. Now dad-bods are again welcome at every fest, leading silly mosh pit antics like mining, rowing, and enjoying music. Much of the success of Wind Rose is how the metal elements (guitar and drums) are relegated to the background, allowing vocal melodies and folk instrumentation to lead the charge. “Diggy Diggy Hole” might be their viral cover, but it’s still emblematic of Wind Rose’s talent for power-metal-pop sensibility. It’s also the ideal reminder that metal is silly. There’s no difference between crowd-killers, two-steppers, arm-crossers, air-guitarists, and pit-diggers. From Dragonforce to Deathspell Omega, it’s all Scooby Doo chase music – but that doesn’t mean it’s all equally good.
Frostbite Orckings present themselves as a very important band with a very important debut album called The Orcish Eclipse. For a moment, don’t trouble yourself with the idea that a power-metal-meets-melodeath album could be important in late 2023. Of course, it has to be something else. Central to the Frostbite Orckings’ project is the proud claim that the songs are “crafted by AI trained in-house, in harmonious collaboration with the insights of real musicians”. The concept of AI plus a guiding hand is not new, but it puts the listener in an odd spot. How was the creative input split? This isn’t splitting hairs, it really matters. Even though they might sound alike, we all know triggered drums don’t hit the same as the real thing. The difference between simulated analogue synths and the beasts themselves is technically nothing, and yet, tangible. A live studio recording could be reproduced with separate tracking, but it wouldn’t be the same. The kinetics of the human being in the process of writing, recording, and performance is fundamentally entwined with the listener’s response. So when AI is given the reins, even if it’s just in the early stages, the wonder and intrigue of the artistic process changes into something else. And yet, these aspects can be elementary – the most important questions are “does it work?” and “do you like it?”. We’ve seen some roaring success in this exact field before. But The Orcish Eclipse is shit.
The Orckings are demanding to be taken seriously, so here’s a serious review. The Orcish Eclipse is ten tracks totalling a less-than-epic thirty five minutes. If you’ve heard power metal before, you’ll know it’s just about making guys say ‘hell yeah’, and the formula will be quite familiar. Each track introduces its opening riff, smashes out the required two verses and two choruses, reworks some previous riff into a bridge, finds the earliest excuse to start the third chorus, and finishes with an outro that is almost certainly the opening riff again with different drum fills. The AI hasn’t re-invented the wheel in terms of structure, opting for inoffensive comfort upon this first contact.
The power metal formula is enhanced through the infusion of melodic death metal. The vocals are a rasped, milquetoast-Amon Amarth, while drums slug and tumble to up the heaviness. The guitars journey for a tone at the intersection between neoclassical and death, arriving at ‘serviceable but lacking in character’. The synths are the final element and do their best to concoct a sword-and-sorcery vibe. Unfortunately, these elements fail to storm any castles as the mix becomes mired in the moat. The main offender is the drums, where every hi-hat, crash, and snare hit is crushed like Death Magnetic wasn’t loud enough. The mids are also a slush as the guitars fight the synths and over-active drum fills. Many decent guitar ideas are lost to obscurity as a result. Occasionally you’ll catch a whiff of bass, but only when everything else gets out of the way. Maybe I’d accept this mix on an AI black metal album (that is not a request), but power metal is not a genre that suits poor production. It’s unusual, because AI is already widely used by bedroom musicians for mixing and mastering, and ought to have done a better job than this. I can only conclude the humans made it worse.
On to the material itself with “When I Fall” being our first exposure to the frigid Orckings. The door is kicked down by a drum fill into a riff that makes you say “ah yes, that’s a power metal riff”. Vocals from ‘singer’ Folkvar Jarlsson belt in, with a hefty but flat ‘performance’ that remains consistently planar throughout the album. The lyrics will make you scratch your head: “When I fall, and I know they are back for more, sing it in your heart: more and more you look at me, I rise when I fall”. I guess this is supposed to be kitschy fun dreamed up by an algorithm fed vague fantasy words. I’m not having fun yet. “Orcs Don’t Cry” is more concise and chock full of keyboard and vocal melodies that just aren’t good, such as the chorus and verse. It’s also a great example of the phoned-in bridges The Orcish Eclipse is full of. Some minor adjustment is made to the main riff, creating a section that is just different enough to grant passage to the final chorus; rock music’s equivalent to thumb-twiddling.
The following tracks on side one are a bit stronger. “Hammers High” has the record’s best chorus, where the vocals match the synths is satisfying, and the barking of “where they come from” at the end of the bridge builds some tangible suspense. “Beauty of the Night” will test your endurance for programmed drums, as the kit is so thoroughly explored that they visit uncanny valley on the way. I had been waiting for a guitar solo, but when “Into The Void” tries, it’s tepid. Later on “Nightfall” has a better one, but just one good solo across an entire power metal album is telling. “We Navigate” was the album’s actual single, featuring an initially passable chorus that gets thoroughly overused. Sadly, they taught the AI how to do key changes, meaning the three minute track is not short enough.
The second half of the album contains a decent song in “Feel the Night”. My ears pricked up as beats were dropped in the verse and chorus, leading to some tasteful riffs. These beat drops feel very much like something a person would write, so if the AI really did do that part, well, you got me – for about thirty seconds of a thirty five minute album. Your mileage may vary, but the choir led “Coming Home” takes me past my limit for corny synth patches. Speaking of my limit, “Nightfall” is a melodeath ballad. It hints at greatness with its clean guitar opening; the first moment that something sounds well produced. Of course, it’s tarnished by crusty vocals moments later. If you have any “benefit-of-the-doubt” in reserve, you don’t have enough for the EDM closer “Endless Love”, the last ditch for all of Frostbite Orckings’ leftover ideas.
There’s a Catch-22 to analysing AI driven projects. Interest in The Orcish Eclipse hinges on its AI black box, which has been trained by human input, and whose results are put through a human producer team. If the result sucks, the fix is to give the humans more say over the machine’s output. However, if you keep asking for these ‘fixes’, it’s no longer a truly AI driven project, extinguishing the intrigue of the black box. I’ll concede that the technological feat is worthy of some respect. Allegedly, there are 10-20 musicians feeding the machine (and no other music outside of this, avoiding the AI copyright quagmire), and 5-6 tech people. And yes, AI is just another buzzwordified technology; it’s no more dubious than autotune, programmed drums, in-ear monitors, or amps that go to “11”. My disappointment is not because of the usage of AI/ML, it’s simply that this is poor quality music, and the fact that it was made by AI doesn’t fill the gap in interest. Maybe this would have been passable if there were 40 contributing musicians, or a hundred. Call me old fashioned, but I don’t care to find out out how many it would take, when it’s known that magical melodeath and brilliant power metal can be made by just one person.
Morbid curiosity and a search for something of artistic substance sent me deep into the universe of the Frostbite Orckings, so here’s the lore analysis nobody wanted. First and foremost, Kerem Beyit’s cover art for the project is fantastic, and I’m glad this task wasn’t handed to AI. The rest of the visuals are the music videos, which are endearingly asset-flipped in a way that says ‘we would have done this in World of Warcraft if that wouldn’t get us demonetised’. “We Navigate” is the best of them with its pixel art clips and semblance of a storyline. Shout out to the band’s purple guitarist, representing every grognard’s unrealistic dream of a busty female orc – proof that AI can’t generate you bitches. It’s not on the album, but please watch its music video for “Bye Bye Wintertime” so you can see the project’s attempt to recapture the magic of “Diggy Diggy Hole”. I love how Folkvar Jarlsson’s pauldron does a Bioware-clip into his bicep every time he does the ‘bye bye’ wave. It’s a problem that good AI would actually fix, but clearly, we’re not there yet.
You’d think the red carpet would be ready for the album’s release, but as you explore the website, the plot thinnens. The most fleshed-out content is the “Metalverse Origin Land Flyover”, revealing the worst fantasy map you’ve ever seen, and that the Frostbite Orckings are from the “Nocturnal Norths”. Be hyped for Heatseekers, of the Divine Desert! And Melodiel of the Heroic Highlands! Four seconds of audio from each band implies their AIs were trained on AC/DC and Nightwish respectively. Oh, sorry – trained on original contributions from their own pool of musicians who were ripping off AC/DC and Nightwish. As no details are given, we can only speculate on these future bands, and, more importantly, avoid accusations of libel. Five more lands exist in the Metalverse, but they only get placeholder ambience. Still, it’s important to monetise your AI project immediately, so of course you can buy NFTs of this land. Not that anyone has for six months – they couldn’t be bothered to re-astroturf for their own NFT collection for the record’s release. At least the five month old Patreon is not accepting new sign ups.
Is this investigative journalism relevant to the album’s review? I’m simply scraping for any substance to affix to The Orcish Eclipse. We cannot turn to the lyrics, whose humour begins and ends at the idea that orcs might cry sometimes. Non-album single “Guardians of Time” confirms all this metalverse lore is an afterthought with “We will conquer promised lands like Vikings!” – how do orcs know about Vikings? I’m not asking for an entire Silmaril of lore here, or even internal consistency. Just convince me that there might be something beneath the lifeless exterior. A vague link to a German wetlands preservation charity on the Metalverse page is not enough. At least when Dream Theater’s The Astonishing dropped, I could ignore the awful sci-fi story (and later, the album itself) and ponder the band’s rich history instead. Instead, given how proud the project is to be AI-fuelled, I simply wonder how little effort this all took.
As stated by the band’s spokesman, the AI has only been trained on from internal contributions by team members. Even still, The Orcish Eclipse is creatively bankrupt in a way that should make other power metal band sue. They sing lofty songs about being guardians of the universe, yet in the background they’re just seeing how few assets they need to make another video for Wind Rose YouTubers who forgot to turn off autoplay. “AI can’t replace authentic talent” is a thoroughly frostbitten take in 2023, but this is my turn to say it. Despite proud usage, AI has failed to provide the spark that the Frostbite Orckings desperately needed. What could have stayed my hand is a recognition that this project was a meme, undertaken just to see where it might get to, but the Metalverse label brandish their AI like it’s a revelation. L70ETC did not pretend to be the future, so when they’re wildly successful off the back of a World of Warcraft machinima where a thrusting crotch smashes through the screen, it’s rightly a triumph. Meanwhile, the Frostbite Orckings claim that “The Orcish Eclipse isn’t just an album; it’s an extraordinary milestone that signifies the limitless potential of heavy metal”. Listening to this suggests there’s nothing special about heavy metal at all. The Frostbite Orckings were dead on arrival and didn’t even drop any good loot.
2/10
The Orcish Eclipse drops on the 22nd December and can be pre-ordered here.