Orthrelm - OV

(03 Apr 2011)

There are albums that, on a first listen, will bring in you an uncontrollable urge to give them a rating of -6.5. This is one of them. The first time listening to OV I thought that Orthrelm were trolling. It was a seemingly endless stream of the same riff over and over again. The people on Youtube who agreed with me were told to listen to the album again. What?! Listen to this crap again? Why would I do such a thing? It's not like I want to waste another 45 minutes of my life listening to a deranged alarm clock.

It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on indefinitely, until it for no reason changes to another pattern to go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on in. And that's for a whole 20 minutes! Then, it becomes slightly less boring, but is still utterly pointless!

It just seemed to me that the album is too mechanical, too redundant, too unnecessarily, well, everything! It seemed that whatever originality this release had wouldn't save it. Still, I was once very bored, so I decided to listen to this again, and my opinion on the album changed completely. I started to listen to how unstable the patterns were. It was mechanical repetition with a human element. The fluctuations in the tempo, the fluctuations in the drumming dynamics, I am an incredibly pretentious snob who likes Pitchfork; it all added to the music. It just seemed throughout the song that it would just fall apart at any moment, and that made for a very tense listen. In fact, I think that I've never felt so tense listening to anything! You know that there will be a transition soon, but you don't know precisely when. It's frustrating.

Towards the end it becomes slightly predictable, but up until then, it is fantastic stuff. Incredibly good indeed. And not knowing when the changes occur still really freaks me out.

Standout tracks:

OV