Artist: Ossuarium
Album: Living Tomb
Genre: Death Metal/Doom Metal/Black Metal
Rating: 8/10
Upon hearing Portland’s own “Ossuarium’s” new album Living Tomb, one can make the assumption that there were preceding albums before it given the attention to detail and technical skill Living Tomb has, but this is impressively the band’s debut album. This album gives off a vibe that the band have been doing this for years and that there has to be a lo-fi debut album littered with kinks in their discography, but that is definitely not the case here. Living Tomb couldn’t be a more polished, unique, and frightfully focused debut album. It is a heavy odyssey that uses “Death Metal” with it’s low growls, wicked guitar riffs, and fast as Hell drumming as a backdrop for immense experimentation in atmosphere, gloom, and of course doom. These tracks often start off with a fist to the face heaviness that will make you head bang to the point where you may need to see a chiropractor afterwards, but they often stray into a territory that incorporates elements of “Doom Metal” with dark drop-tuned guitar melodies, and even “Post-Rock” with reverbed out chorus effects, and atmospheres that are beautifully dark and even dreamy, well… more nightmarish than dreamy, because this is as dark as it gets, it’s an unrelenting odyssey, and I do mean odyssey because this whole album is a journey down the rabbit hole of chaos. There’s even an intro at the beginning of the record that kind of echoes the frightening pre-opening scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey where the screen is pitch black but backed by disturbingly eerie music. If the band is already this good on their debut album, there’s no telling what they’re capable of doing in the future.
Written By: Steven Sandoval
Date: 02/04/19
