Style: Black metal, doom/sludge
Primary Emotions/Themes: Chaos, dwelling amongst the rotten
Thoughts: Odium: general or widespread hatred or disgust toward someone as a result of their actions.
Hatred... anathema... abhorrence... revulsion. Odium is a strong word, it embodies one of the deepest and most primal descriptions of hatred in the English language. Calling an album Odium brings with it a large sense of what the music should sound like... it's a powerful word - can Wothrosch's debut album measure up to it?
What do I expect when a band declares their first album Odium? I expect music that is menacing, relentless, and is out to murder the listener. I expect riffs that are tremendous in scope and overwhelm with their multitude. I expect to be crushed into the ground with abandon and then left in the mud like the worthless filth that I am.
What do Wothrosch deliver? Well not quite what I had described above, but the music contained in Odium can often be quite intense and convey that sense of obliteration that I expect from something like this. The band combines relentless dissonant black metal with interludes of the dirtiest sludge that I've heard in quite some time.
The first two tracks, Child and Tumor go full speed and never let up. The riffs have that menacing instinct to murder and the vocals wail and howl to match. There is little in the way of variation, the music is simply content to exist in this homicidal state.
The band shifts focus and begins to come into their own on the third track. Here the band begins to incorporate slower tempos and sludge into their already impressive sound. The vocals take on an even lower tone to them and roar through the bottom registers to create an unsettling sound to the music. It's here on Disease where the band's sound fully blooms into the horrific plague blossom that they call Odium.
Feedback overlays the riffs. Deep open chords are left out in the open to rot and decay into unrecognizable noise. Silence is allowed to build for an uncomfortable amount of time before the band explodes back in. As good as the first two tracks are, they pale in comparison to the monstrous third track.
From here the band explores many different ideas, some fast, some slow - all interesting. Is it all as good as those first three tracks? No not really. The rest of the album stumbles every now and then, but the band shows real promise here - especially on Disease. I'm curious where the band goes from here and their future releases at minimum have my curiosity. If they go deeper down the road of Disease then they have the potential to create something exceptional.
Written November 27th 2023
No comments:
Post a Comment