Day: November 15, 2017

The Ukrainian Odradek Room is not the typical death doom one would expect when accompanied by the Solitude label, this time through the BadMoodMan sub label and in association with the Canadian Hypnotic Dirge. Not that the Russian label is used to offering the genre in its most predictable guise, quite the contrary, but let’s just say that in most cases the bands on its roster offer doom with a predominantly emotional component. The Mariupol quartet, on the other hand, with this A Man Of Silt continues the discourse begun four years ago with their debut, Bardo. Relative Reality, adding a large dose of post metal and progressive impulses to the genre. The result is an album that needs to be worked on with a certain patience in order to grasp its undoubted value, since here we don’t find those melodic and atmospheric openings able to hit the heart with immediacy, but rather an oblique and very technical approach that, at a first approach, struggles not a little to leave traces. Moreover, even conceptually the death doom of Odradek Room is unconventional, providing a decisive clue in this sense since the moniker, which is inspired by a character from a story by Kafka, and A Man Of Silt reveals an effective and complex elaboration of the genre, giving it back in its most rarefied and liquid guise. The complexity of listening is evidenced by the fact that the first memorable chorus comes in the beautiful fourth track Mirror, but already in the next Rain Trip the jazz references offered by the winds cloak the song with a Crimsonian aura reinforced by a guitar work of great value, while Silt Flower continues the work of deconstruction of the genre as we are accustomed to cross it. Overall, the whole album is characterized by a natural elegance, as well as an enviable compositional balance that confirms Odradek Room as yet another great doom band from the cold lands of Eastern Europe, with especially the Ukrainian scene in the foreground (and it is eloquent demonstration of the importance that has assumed a magnificent event as the Doom Over Kiev, whose last edition ours obviously took part). All that remains is to congratulate these guys, inviting death doom fans with the finest palate to make A Man Of Silt their own.

2017 – Hypnotic Dirge Records