Review: Owls Over Oaks ‘O.O.O.’
The new record from extreme drone doom Italians Owls Over Oaks is called O.O.O., and you can probably guess what that stands for. The band, now a three-piece after being founded by former Enisun bassist Valerio ‘Leynir’ Possetto, have developed an earth-shaking sound with no guitars but dual bass lines, performed by Leynir himself. It is a unique style that I am looking forward to getting into, as these three tracks stretch to almost forty minutes of crushing, nihilistic drone doom. O.O.O. is out now through Argonauta Records and was mastered by the legendary James Plotkin, whose work with Khanate was clearly a reference point.
Opener OWLS is a guttural, slow-motion crawl of subterranean doom, channelling the darkest moments of Burning Witch or Winter into a relentless, distorted trudge. It is almost shockingly grim, reaching layers of despair that depressive black metal bands wish they could touch. That oppressive double bass guitar approach doesn’t mean there isn’t any melody here; it is just submerged beneath a murky, distorted fog.
If you thought the mesmerising, ugly ritualistic nature of OWLS was misanthropic, OVER will drag you down even further with its cloying, suffocating atmospherics. Plotkin has worked wonders with this production job, wringing every single moment of atmospheric dread from each note. The drums provide the merest of handholds in the roiling black, while Elisa ‘Aeretica’ Iacopini‘s vocal performance is more animalistic roars and noise than actual words. There’s a moment when the darkness lifts to reveal spidery bass parts that somehow sound more sinister without the backdrop before disappearing back into the ether.
If you like your doom full of distortion, weirdness and a crippling, nihilistic fatalism, then get on this record…
The final minutes of alien bass twangs and industrial screeches leave you feeling very unsettled going into the eighteen-minute closer OAKS, which builds on that sound into a dreadful driving cacophony of distortion and nihilism. About three minutes in, I swear they are doing a Children Of The Grave tribute, but to be honest, I’m so lost inside this record I don’t know what is going on anymore, especially when all of a sudden, the ghostly clean vocals of Iacopini burst through the bludgeoning fuzz. It is one of the most effective transitions of mood I’ve seen in a record like this, when the oppression lifts into a sinister ethereality, and you are left bereft of the words to describe it. O.O.O. feels like an out-of-body experience at times.
There’s somewhat of a swirling madness that overtakes you as it progresses; the format of three tracks begins to dissolve into one coherent and yet torturous aural experience. Apparently, this is just part one of a trilogy, and if the second and third parts are as harrowing, then we’ll be in for a treat. I think. A treat isn’t necessarily what I mean, but when you’re faced with a project like Owls Over Oaks, your grasp of effective description is often found wanting. If you like your doom full of distortion, weirdness and a crippling, nihilistic fatalism, then get on this record. Ooft.
Label: Argonauta Records
Band Links: Facebook | Spotify | Instagram
Scribed by: Sandy Williamson
