MALEVICH – Our Hollow
Dark, complex, intense, menacing and crushing may be some adjectives to describe the latest release from Malevich titled Our Hollow. Following up the debut Only the flies released in 2016, Our Hollow is fixed upon the inclusion of a second guitarist and three types of vocals that add a lot to the strength and fierceness of the songs.
Our Hollow is comprised of 9 songs, each holding their own ground and creating a whole of ominous and nightmarish destruction. Creating layers upon layers on a base of menacing and aggressive sludge metal, Malevich recreates and adds their own flavor to heavy and “from-the-depths” music.
It’s darkly emotional and complex, the melodies seem to move in a cerebral kind of way in some songs, like Distended Empire, a behemoth of a song that clocks around 8 minutes, reminding us of other bands that mix heaviness with progression, such as Fall of Efafra, Maudlin of the Well, Isis, or old Cult of Luna.
In the song, Distented Empire, the guitars seem to want to rip every inch of flesh in us, revealing our inner self and playing with our most feral and hidden instincts. There are bold melodies that mix aggression and complexity with melody and more introspective and instrumental passages.
The album as a whole is a unique frenzied and intense ride on the rollercoaster of emotions that are both dark and threatening but that are ultimately part of our nature. An extreme yet great listening experience for fans of heavy and complex music.
OLAM – I will Guide Thy Hand
The so-called extreme music acts viscerally on our senses and gets “under our skin” making us confront our most repressed urges or sorrowful memories. It is in the extreme that we find our own inner self without filters of social restraints. Music that is intense but also melodic and complex enough to make us ponder and reflect. There is an immensity of experimentation to be had in the extremes of music, hydrid sounds, progressive and cerebral but mellow and atmospheric at times. It’s a world that fortunately is populated with enough bands that dare to challenge more that just our sense of hearing.
From Indianapolis comes OLAM (Of Lions and Men) a trio that has released this year their debut, I will guide Thy hand and that has produced a colossal work of more than just intricate post-hardcore subtly influenced by bands like Oathbreaker and Converge.
Olam also has a meaning in Hebrew, it means “world” and is used in many expressions, such as Olam Haba (Jewish afterlife) and Adon Olam (one of the many names of God), even though there is no direct correlation between the band’s choice for the name and the title of the album, there is something particularly ethereal about the band’s music.
An ether that is filled with fervour and anguish like in the song Under my Breath with swirling guitars and brazen vocals. Some brutality and unpredictability as in Bloodletting, one of the shortest but most intense songs of the record. Energy and youth vitality with swirling guitars in Razorblades as neckties and the light and dark realms mixing in the song that names the album, I will guide Thy hand. A song that starts off with the brutality and frenzied rhythms of some mathcore inspired hardcore and that manages to ignite, burning either fast or slow with incredible dynamic changing in rhythms and tempo.
A very diverse and engaging debut that carries a unique sound style that can only get better in future releases.
Text: Cláudia Zafre
Label: Zegema Beach Records