Jul 252022
 

(Here we present DGR‘s review of a new album by the Italian dark death metal architects Order Ov Riven Cathedrals, which was released by Ultimate Massacre Productions.)

Late May of this year saw the release of Order Ov Riven Cathedrals‘ fourth album, Absolute – their first via a record label. The ever-ambitious brutal death project took some time between their third album Thermonuclear Sculptures Blackness and Absolute, almost three years in fact, after having previously placed themselves on an increasingly intense year-over-year churn of albums.

There’s a few surprising things about Absolute for those who have been following the band as long as this site has. You’re likely already familiar with them essentially as a two-piece hyperspeed blastbeat bulldozer, but Absolute could actually serve as something of a bookend for the slate of releases Order Ov Riven Cathedrals have put out thus far. It shares more in common with the group’s debut release The Discontinuity’s Interlude than its immediate predecessor, especially when you take into account that both weigh in at a concise seven songs and clock in at about thirty-two minutes a piece. Continue reading »

Nov 072019
 

 

(We present DGR’s review of the new third album by the Italian technical death metal band Order Ov Riven Cathedrals, which will be released at the end of this month.)

The last time we checked in with the mysterious duo behind hyperspeed death metal band Order Ov Riven Cathedrals was as recently as last year, with their second full-length album Gobekli Tepe. That album arrived a little under a year after the group’s debut record, The Discontinuity’s Interlude, which is one hell of a creative pace to try and up-keep, and in some ways Gobekli Tepe reflected that, at times feeling like the duo were stretching themselves a little too thin.

That disc sought to expand upon the musical themes found within its predecessor and saw the group’s sound doing so as well, making usage of multiple samples, a myriad of electronics and synths working their way behind the group’s frenetic pace, about fourteen more minutes’ worth of music, and a new-found obsession with nuclear reactions that has become even more obvious with the group’s newest album – this time with a little more time in the hopper, close to a year and a half.

Thermonvclear Scvlptvres Blackness  – a title befitting the Dimmu Borgir school of “three awesome words as album title” method – seeks to pick up right where its predecessor left off and mostly does just that, with the band’s chosen tempo applying not only to their music but apparently to the release schedule as well. Continue reading »

May 012018
 

 

(DGR wrote this review of the new album by the Italian death metal band Order Ov Riven Cathedrals.)

Göbekli Tepe, the recently released full-length follow-up to last year’s Order Ov Riven Cathedrals EP The Discontinuinity’s Interlude, takes absolutely no prisoners from the moment its first real song kicks off. Following a similar format to last year’s EP, Göbekli Tepe basically has an intro for ambience and then spends the rest of its time with you going as fast as feasibly possible — in line with many of their Italian hyperfast blast-heavy death metal kin — and making almost no compromise in favor of breathing room.

The mysterious two-piece behind Order Ov Riven Cathedrals continue their science fiction and mythological bent nearly a year later, this time amplifying just about every aspect of last year’s EP, making it feel like The Discontinuity’s Interlude really was laying out a blueprint for them to follow. Order Ov Riven Cathedrals not only wring just about every ounce of highly accelerated  death metal they can out of their time, but also bring along a bevy of familiar movie and media samples (how many albums out there have a sample from Breaking Bad on them these days?). These include metal’s recent obsession with Oppenheimer’s television interview wherein he utters “I am become death, destroyer of worlds”… although the Riven Cathedrals crew mix it up a bit by using it in reverse and closing out with, “A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent”. Continue reading »

Jan 272018
 

 

It’s a shitty situation. Here I am, posting more of this list on a Saturday, the weakest day of the week, measured by how may eyes alight on our site. But I’m doing my best to finish this list by February.

Still, the three songs here deserve a fireworks display more grand than what our Saturday traffic usually provides. Life isn’t fair, and it’s too damned short and miserable, too.

MAZE OF TERROR

I read through my list of candidates for this series every day, because I’m still trying to figure out what to include. When I come to this one, I see 10 asterisk marks next to it. I have a vague memory that I was trying to tell myself many months ago, “Your mind is a sieve, it loses important things every day, but don’t forget this one, you fractured motherfucker, this one you FUCKING HAVE TO REMEMBER.” And so I have. Continue reading »

Jul 182017
 

 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the debut album by Italy’s Order Ov Riven Cathedrals, which was released on July 5, 2017.)

Italian death metal and I have a pretty tense relationship. It tries so hard, and there’s certainly impressive things about it, but I’m usually not impressed. I like Hideous Divinity, and some Hour Of Penance and Fleshgod Apocalypse, but that’s really it, and even then I’m not so enamored that I couldn’t do without them.

The hyperspeed “let’s out Pole the Polish” aesthetic has always been commendable, and I have nothing against it in and of itself, but I often find that Italian bands lack the sense of efficiency and hooky song-writing that makes the Polish death metal template so appealing. Fleshgod has always been a band I enjoy because of the gimmick they offer (it works), and while I wasn’t impressed with Hideous Divinity at the beginning, they have evolved into a very good Annihilation Of The Wicked-era throwback band, and their new album this year is undeniably one of 2017‘s best.

And that brings me to Order Ov Riven Cathedrals. This is the first time I’ve encountered Italian hyper-speed death metal and actually LOVED it from the first listen. I might even go as far as to say that, at least for me personally, this is the first time the Italian death metal formula has been both perfected and extrapolated upon effectively. The Discontinuity’s Interlude is one of the most unrelenting, savage, and uncompromising death metal albums I’ve heard all year. Continue reading »