Odporovat 1968 – Elend

posted by Zamo on February 24, 2011

To clear some things out, Odpörovät means “to resist/resistance” in czech (The person behind o.68 was born in Prague) and the 1968 part is a hint to the actions that happened during the Prague Spring that year. The name is not really meant in a political way. It’s more of a synonym for being true to your views/attitude in resisting the manipulations that try to influence you from the outside (religions, media, society … ).

o.68 is a one man funeral doom band, and “Elend” is the first full length album of the band. From the very start, through the intro of the track called “Mornau”.. “Memories long faded return to me from out of the darkness. Even now, I disintegrate in their presence. It turns my stomach into broken glass. In the end, I’ll find myself where I began. And I shall start again.” … We realize that we will listen to a veritable album of funeral doom, a very dark and dense album, though, an album that won’t let you bury yourself in its darkness.

All throughout the album, we encounter a slow, honorable rhythm for every doom metal band, tortured low growls and sometimes, complicated riffs, that, though, don’t permit you to lose your attention. The interesting part of the things is that 0.68 doesn’t use an electric guitar, all the riffs being produced by an entire collection of bass guitars, heavily distorted.

Another distinction from many funeral doom bands is that o.68 doesn’t keep the same rhythm from one track to another, you can sometimes encounter a very slow, sad song, typical to doom metal (for example, in Mornau, Kremation, Mortal) and in the following moment to run into a track with some sort of groove in it or with some influences of stoner metal ( Mother of Negation and Zeitgeist Nokturne).

The album offers you a dose of variety concerning everything that means funeral doom, from influences of death doom metal to some drone and stoner.

“Elend” is also a very hard and intelligently crafted album, from depressive, dark sequences to hypnotising ones and to those different influences that we can see in this album. I also have to underline the way in which a bass guitar can replace any intervention of electric guitar so well.. This fact makes this album even more valuable.

A promising album, maybe somewhat hard to digest for those that aren’t used to such heavy, low tones, but maybe it isn’t coincidental that their name is Odpörovät (to resist / resistance ), and this album will challenge you from the first moments.. It’s about you, whether you’re capable of resisting or not.

As a presentation for “Elend”: Crisp silver print on a double pocket digi pack with an eight-page booklet .Released on January 7th, it’s limited to 250 copies. You can listen to some samples or buy your copy here: http://www.ominous-silence.webs.com/cd.html .

Rating : 7.5/10

http://www.ominous-silence.webs.com/info.html

http://www.myspace.com/o68