Ofermod – Thaumiel | Review
We have our resident reviewer Raul Singh bleeding black with the latest album from ‘Ofermod‘ titled ‘Thaumiel‘.
Ofermod – Thaumiel – Album
Tracklist:
01. Sisters of Rapture and Pestilence 07:42
02. Black Gate 05:40
03. Calling of Setnacht: Twofold Triunity 06:33
04. Undead Moon 05:17
05. Prayers Unto Warped Eternities 05:15
06. Chôshekh Ên Sôf 06:05
07. Chained to Redemption 06:09
08. Via Noctis: Veil of Gargophias 05:04
Ofermod is what I’ll call the pioneers of new world Black Metal. Hailing from Sweden, they’ve already released an album and a single, and the tag they were given, was Orthodox blackened death metal.
I, for one, always expect swedish bands to be somewhere in the realm of “trve” norwegian black metal, but the likes of Marduk, Shining , Dark Funeral, Dissection and all had kept trying to merge a pinch of freshness in their works, deviating from the musical pattern of the “kvlt”. Ofermod can actually be placed in the likes of these, a fresh new sound for the dark music.
The name “Thaumiel” is a hebrew word, stands for “twins of god” represents the dark powers of “Kether”, the first “Sephirah” of “Sephiroths” of the Tree of life. It is actually personified as giant dual heads with bat-like wings, but with no bodies and are called the Divided Ones. Thus, their album artwork has the two headed figure.The production quality is as good as it can get to be called Black. The music is dark and sinister as is expected. Its rather manages to be very different but yet very well within the black metal ethos.
“Thaumiel” starts with “Sisters of Rapture and Pestilence” and it takes you straight to the world of occultism and darkness with its very mid-tempo riffs, and neo-classical drums. This is the limit of delivering pure evil just by riffs. Composition wise, this is my favorite track off the album. The next track continues with their mid tempo/slow riffs , when suddenly it crashes into “Calling Of Setnacht Twofold Triunity”, amplifying everything that was going deep before. Another track, which will have your attention, is “Undead Moon”. The man, who was sulking my brain with his corrosively dark vocals, just starting singing clean !! . Of course it might seem a tad misplaced, and probably would sound better off alone, but it owns none the less. Vocals are one of the highlights of this album , with a lot of variations, both on cleans, deep, gutturals, and screeches, a very rare but simple blend of a man’s voice I’d say.
Ofermod offered something which is different on a whole lot different. It had brought the darkness in music without the use of any corpse paint, or any war-like gesture which had been the point of mockery for Black Metal, or any under quality production, or … you know what I mean. It made me believe in a simple logic of mine, its easy to make music what people already like, but its hard to make music which people will start to like. They proved that you don’t have to be complex and technical to make good music. And something as simple as this blew my mind without bringing in uber complexity simply amazed me.
This one is as worth as anything you’ve got your hands upon recently.
“Chosekh En Sof.” the song on its own struck me as a death dealer. With that I close my itunes right now, and i here end with a quote by the insane Caligula (quoted in the very same song)
Caligula – “I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night. I am all men as I am no man and therefore I am a God”
Sanath Kumar
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