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| #FOR FANS OF Brutal death |
Kolf Christian must be a forge of ideas and above all must have plenty of free time to afford to have so many bands: Island, Valborg, Woburn House, Orbo, Slon, Centaurus-A, Kosmos Wald and now this latest creation, the Owl. Once again, helped by the loyal Patrick Schroeder, drummer on duty in several of its businesses, Christian creates this time a work that plunges into the darkest, more claustrophobic, intransigent and toughest death metal to hear, maybe also because of the endless duration of some songs. It begins with the "Conquering the Kingdom of Rain" and its 13 minutes of extreme sounds played on gloomy mid-tempo, distressing and at the end crawling like an extremely dangerous boa constrictor who is about to threaten and then grab its prey. In all this obsessive pace of guitars actually never that boring, are perhaps the dissonant sounds of the guitars which contribute to the darkening of the already gloomy by itself atmosphere, not to mention the growling vocals, which are making the proposal even more depressing. None of these hearings is easy to listen here, make up an excuse for yourselves soon; otherwise you too will end up being crushed in the deadly grip of the boa. From the “owl" this release probably only has those nocturnal sounds that are found in the finale of the opening track that gives room to a gloomy, brutal and pounding sound of the "Lost in the Melting Mountain Vaults Underneath of the Saints", a sort of psychotic version of Nile, merged with the delirious musical shrewdness of the visionaries Deathspell Omega, while the cavernous vocals of Mr. Kolf continue to haunt our worst nightmares. The suggestion of the Owl is proving increasingly deadly as it advances through listening and my poor ears are also strained by the long third track that continues to make palpable the feeling of death that comes out of in this fetid platter. At the fourth "Spell of the Ignis Fatuus That Lead to the impalpable Altar of Beasts", characterized by hyper fast blast beats, I almost thought that I got away with it because only a piece separates me from the end of this boring cd, but soon I realized that the conclusive "Threnodical Ritual at the Spectral Shores of the Eternal Sunset" lasts 30 minutes. Terrified by this discovery, I take a deep breath and I dive into the icy putrid waters that open the piece; I come across another sad discovery that in fact this half hour is made up only of ambient sounds, almost like one of those bookshop cd’s of the type “sea sounds”; troubling realization that destabilizes even more the hearing of this controversial work. Unfortunately I would not recommend this album to a much wider audience, but only to those who like extreme death metal sounds, only to be disappointed by the epilogue ambient. I do not know, hard to judge an album so psychotic, but on the other hand, by such a controversial guy like Christian Kolf, what could we expect? (Francesco Scarci – Translation by Sofia Lazani)
(Zeitgeister)
Rate: 65
Rate: 65