(Andy Synn stares blindly into the abyssal realms… and is very pleased by what stares back)
It probably shouldn’t (I know how the game is played, after all) but it still rankles with me whenever I see bands getting major deals, support slots, etc, based on who their members are rather than the quality of their music.
At the same time, however, when bands we love here at NCS break up – and in this case we’re talking about Vermont-based Prog-Sludgers Barishi – I’m always happy to keep an ear out for whatever their members do next.
Does this make me a hypocrite? Probably. But I comfort myself with the thought that there’s at least a qualitative difference between, say, a major festival giving a so-called “super-group” a slot before they’ve even released any music and a site like ours trying to keep up with the careers of some of our favourite underground artists.
Hypocrisy or not though, the debut album from Ordh demonstrates exactly why it’s so important to keep track of this level of talent, wherever they end up.
In a year that’s already been surprisingly rich in gnarly, proggy Death Metal – I’m thinking of the likes of Gutvoid, Voidstar Nocturnal, Ensanguinate and the upcoming self-titled by Devoid of Thought, rather than the shinier, techier style of “Prog Death” that’s a little more ubiquitous these days – Blind In Abyssal Realms wastes very little time in establishing that it can go toe-to-toe with any of them.
From the eerie opening bars of “Apis Bull” – a song which eventually manifests an absolutely monstrous array of lurching, leviathan riffs and lambent melodic leads whose bleak, yet brual, nature invites obvious comparisons to the likes of Sulphur Aeon and Ulthar, albeit with a gloomier, doomier hue – to the final contorted death rattle of “Hierothesion”, the band’s debut marries classic, crawling Death Metal horror with an ambitious sense of occult, anti-cosmic atmosphere in a manner which feels both fresh and familiar at the same time.
The fact that it’s coming from a collection of recognisable and well-respected undergound names (as well as ex-Barishi members Graham Brooks and Dylan Brake, the band’s line-up is completed by ex-Barishi live member Joshua Smith on bass and current Come to Grief growler Jonathan Hébert behind the mic) goes some way to explain this, of course, but it’s a testament to the group’s collective talents that rather than just settling for “playing the hits” these old dogs have gone out of their way to learn some new tricks instead.
There’s a captivating weirdness, as well as an almost wide-eyed sense of wonder, to “Moon of Urd”, for example, which also invites comparison to Worlds Beyond… era Mithras (especially when Brooks cuts loose with another one of his enigmatic, electrifying lead parts) without it feeling as though Ordh are simply retreading the same ground, with the group’s willingness to slow things down and pull back from the edge to explore a more introspective inner-space helping to further set them apart from their peers (and predecessors).
It’s the extravagant ambition of “Phelgraean Fields” (whose unsettling, Pink Floyd-ian undercurrent will undoubtedly grab the attention of even the most casual Blood Incantation fan) and the even more unorthodox and unconventional title-track (which builds from a sinister, slithering slow-burn into a chaotic conflagration of charred, churning riffs and swirling, swaming leads over the course of twelve twisting and turning minutes) that shows you just how little regard that Ordh have for the “normal” way of doing things, with Brooks’s piercing, pseudo-melodic fretwork in particular continuing to cast aside all the standard rules in favour of a much more experimental and exploratory approach.
Make no mistake about it, Blind In Abyssal Realms is one of the best debut albums of the year so far, and firmly establishes the band as “ones to watch”