(written by Islander)
Last November we premiered a song called “Ghost Key“, the first single from the debut album of Ørb, the melodic death metal project of English/Danish solo artist Karl Koch. Today we’re presenting the second single, “Presence:Absence“. To set the stage for it, we’ll quote again from Ørb’s description of the album’s dystopian sci-fi theme — which focuses on a very real and urgent phenomenon:
The full-length album follows a lone resistance figure in a dystopian future where humanity teeters on the brink of extinction under the omnipotent grasp of The Nexus – an advanced AI network that has reduced humanity to obedient cogs in a machine-driven existence. Armed only with unwavering principles and the history of humankind, this stoic survivor embarks on a perilous journey to challenge the AI overlord.
The album’s narrative arc traces a revolt that may be liberation—or only another loop in the machine. Central questions drive the work: Can fate be overcome? What remains of human identity when autonomy is stripped away? Does a belief in determinism empower or limit us? These aren’t abstract philosophical exercises—they’re survival questions in an age where AI increasingly shapes human experience.
The project stands with one boot in tomorrow’s wasteland and one in the world we already feel tightening around us, creating a parable about resistance that resonates beyond the boundaries of extreme metal.
In the album’s narrative, the song we premiered last fall (the record’s third track) marks a turning point, “where the first unauthorized thought flickers in a world designed to eliminate them…. that impulse toward freedom that no system, no matter how powerful, can completely erase.”
The song we’re premiering today, “Presence:Absence“, arrives later in the album. Ørb explains:
“Presence:Absence” is track 6 — the album’s midpoint proof that the Ghost Key leaves traces: a quiet, subjective glitch where selves begin to flicker and memory dissolves into static. Through intimate images of empty rooms and failed touch, it dramatises a fragile assertion of being repeatedly swallowed by the system, signalling a localised vulnerability in The Nexus and planting the emotional seed for self-authored resistance.
Musically, this is first and foremost a muscle-moving groove-hammer, but it includes atmospheric ingredients of dark and diaphanous eeriness and other changes that add to the song’s dynamism as it jolts forward.
To get more specific, the song’s opening groove (reprised again as the song proceeds) is a two-part rhythmic pulse — part depth-charge boom, part gunshot-pop. The groove changes, with variations in the drum and bass-work and a vanishing of the riffing that makes way for more prominence in the ethereal high-end shimmers. The music also menacingly moans, tremulously wails, and vividly shivers.
The vocals consist of rasping black metal snarls, but they are viciously expressive rather than monotonous. Their intensity magnifies as they rise up or become doubled, and they also descend into deep growls.
It’s a very infectious song too — as you’ll now discover for yourselves:
Like “Ghost Key“, “Presence:Absence” is available now at Bandcamp. The music comes recommended for fans of In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, The Halo Effect, Orbit Culture, and Gojira.
https://orbofficial.bandcamp.com/track/presence-absence
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