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These guys came out of nowhere with a debut Lp that sheds little light on who is behind it; the record itself is virtually devoid of information, with just abstract artwork on the front cover spelling out the band name OS, and the insert just has more abstract line drawings, no track titles, no band member information, nothing to betray the entities behind this disturbing mass of oozing, abstract blackness. It's a creeping, inchoate blackness full of pummeling down tuned heaviness and abrasive frequencies that reminds me of both the doomed black slime of bands like Trees, Bunkur, Whitehorse and Moss, and the more abstract and aberrant sounds of Abruptum, Wicked King Wicker, Habsyll, Argentinum Astrum and Gnaw Their Tongues.
The first side is a black mass of doomy guitars, distant wheezing chants, and monstrous rumblings, a syrupy blackdoom dirge with wailing anguished screams wafting out of the shadows, moving in a shambling off time lurch, the drums spaced out and minimal, a thick black fog enshrouding the loose riffing, weird atonal guitar noises suddenly piercing the blackness, like a much MUCH doomier Abruptum, maybe. There's definitely an improvised feel to this stuff, although the heavy doom riffage continues through the entire track. Yeah, it really does remind me of Abruptum at their slowest, or maybe a vastly slower, decomposing Hellhammer, with tons of reverb and droning feedback swirling around like crypt-vapors, and actually not all that unlike that Disjecta Membrae album that I reviewed on the last new arrivals list. It's tortured, hellish doom-damage that wields feedback as instrument, rotting guitar notes suspended in midair, everything smeared into a glacial blackdoom ritual. The vocals are seriously fucked-up, like hearing someone having nails pounded into their flesh, and then towards the end, the music begins to reveal glints of melody, for a brief moment allowing a bit of light to crack through the grim blackness before shifting right back into the black crush, heavier and slightly faster this time, ending the song as a grinding propulsive dirge drowning in looped backwards feedback, amp noise, and rattling sheet metal. The screams become more heavily treated by electronic effects, the track shifts from one creeping riff to another over the last half of the track, becoming a slowing Sabbathian crawl, increasingly infected with whirring space FX and terrifying processed vocals...
Flipping over, the second side picks up almost exactly where they left off, opening in a black murky haze of backwards guitar, pitch-shifted devil voices, dissonant chords that slowly coalesce into another messed-up Sabbathian dirge, huge slow riffing surrounded by sheets of atonal guitar and amp rumble, the pitch of the whole song shifting subtly as it progresses, getting queasy and disorientating. And then the vocals burst in, a freaked out squall of heavily delayed screams like someone being tortured at the far end of an echo chamber, changing into monstrous guttural roars as the music slows abruptly, going from plodding deathdirge into glacial diseased black doom. After awhile, the riff falls away and the band slips into a huge rumbling field of grinding black ambience and fx overload, a creepy minor key blackened melody slithering through the side, fucked-up slurred vocals, then lurches back into the frenzied slow motion doomchaos for moment before the song fades off.
Nicely packaged in a black linen sleeve with screenprinted artwork in metallic gold ink, and includes an insert. Limited to 400 hand-numbered copies. © CRUCIAL BLAST
The first side is a black mass of doomy guitars, distant wheezing chants, and monstrous rumblings, a syrupy blackdoom dirge with wailing anguished screams wafting out of the shadows, moving in a shambling off time lurch, the drums spaced out and minimal, a thick black fog enshrouding the loose riffing, weird atonal guitar noises suddenly piercing the blackness, like a much MUCH doomier Abruptum, maybe. There's definitely an improvised feel to this stuff, although the heavy doom riffage continues through the entire track. Yeah, it really does remind me of Abruptum at their slowest, or maybe a vastly slower, decomposing Hellhammer, with tons of reverb and droning feedback swirling around like crypt-vapors, and actually not all that unlike that Disjecta Membrae album that I reviewed on the last new arrivals list. It's tortured, hellish doom-damage that wields feedback as instrument, rotting guitar notes suspended in midair, everything smeared into a glacial blackdoom ritual. The vocals are seriously fucked-up, like hearing someone having nails pounded into their flesh, and then towards the end, the music begins to reveal glints of melody, for a brief moment allowing a bit of light to crack through the grim blackness before shifting right back into the black crush, heavier and slightly faster this time, ending the song as a grinding propulsive dirge drowning in looped backwards feedback, amp noise, and rattling sheet metal. The screams become more heavily treated by electronic effects, the track shifts from one creeping riff to another over the last half of the track, becoming a slowing Sabbathian crawl, increasingly infected with whirring space FX and terrifying processed vocals...
Flipping over, the second side picks up almost exactly where they left off, opening in a black murky haze of backwards guitar, pitch-shifted devil voices, dissonant chords that slowly coalesce into another messed-up Sabbathian dirge, huge slow riffing surrounded by sheets of atonal guitar and amp rumble, the pitch of the whole song shifting subtly as it progresses, getting queasy and disorientating. And then the vocals burst in, a freaked out squall of heavily delayed screams like someone being tortured at the far end of an echo chamber, changing into monstrous guttural roars as the music slows abruptly, going from plodding deathdirge into glacial diseased black doom. After awhile, the riff falls away and the band slips into a huge rumbling field of grinding black ambience and fx overload, a creepy minor key blackened melody slithering through the side, fucked-up slurred vocals, then lurches back into the frenzied slow motion doomchaos for moment before the song fades off.
Nicely packaged in a black linen sleeve with screenprinted artwork in metallic gold ink, and includes an insert. Limited to 400 hand-numbered copies. © CRUCIAL BLAST