Release
date: April
17th
2020.
Label: Apollon Records Format: CD/DD/Vinyl
Oneiromancer
– Tracklisting
1.Tahaghghogh
Resalat 04:17
2.Oneiromancer
09:15
3.The
Seer 05:39
4.Hara
08:59
5.Khthon
06:48
Members
Torstein
Nørstegård Tveiten (vocals)
Anders
Vaage (bass),
Eirik
Goksøyr (guitar)
Trygve
Svarstad (guitar)
Tore
Lyngstad (drums)
Review
Oneiromancer
is quite a different beast to Bismarck 2018 debut album Urkfraft and
you can feel that bold creative change on the opening song
Tahaghghogh
Resalat. As the song opens with some trippy Middle Eastern chants and
chimes which does take some getting used to and it left me wondering
how this album would play out compared to their wonderfully heavy
debut album.
I
do prefer Urkraft to Oneiromancer but this is still a strange and
beautiful mix of different heavy styles of Doom, Drone, Psychedelic
and Sludge Metal vibes with Bismarck feeling they are on a permanent
ACID or LSD Trip which they haven’t returned yet from.
The
album soon drifts into Post-Black Metal territory with the stunningly
bleak heavy song – Oneiromancer – and it’s a disturbing vision
of fast-paced blackened Sludge Metal grooves with the vocals adding a
more abstract effect. The Post-Doom sounds do slow the mood down at
the right moments with Ambient Textures adding a more grizzled
effect.
Bismarck
have employed Chris Fielding to help co-produce the album along with
bassist Anders Vaage and Leif Herland. All three do a stellar job
bringing a much needed bleakness and realness to the overall sound of
the album. The album does sound quite spectacular when the heaviest
riffs appear on the album with a deeply rich and progressive sound
that was perhaps lacking on their previous album.
The
album also has James Plotkin helping out with mastering duties with
Chris Fielding being involved engineering and mixing duties as well.
So Bismarck have pulled out all the stops in the background in
bringing their creative vision to life. So top marks on that aspect
of the album.
Bismarck
continue their heavy and trippy Psychedelic journey on The Seer which
is a more straight-forward style of Bleak sounding Doom/Sludge Metal
that Bismarck play so well whilst still offering a slightly different
sound on the album.
Fourth
song – Hara – is a song that is very hard to describe with
Bismarck going all over the place creatively speaking on this song
but still perhaps offering the best song on the entire album. With
the band employing a stunning mix of Post-Black Metal Droned Out
Soundscapes to capture the wild mix of Drone, Doom, Sludge Metal and
Post-Metal grooves with a Middle-Eastern vibe being hard in the
background on the later stages of the song.
The
final song – Khthon – is another wonderfully weird creative turn
Bismarck have made with a cool sounding 70s Psychedelic Prog/Folk
Rock feel that sounds inspired by OPETH. Though, that’s just my own
personal view on this song. The band do return to a familiar style of
bleak pounding Doom/Sludge Metal that have a despairing and
world-weary heaviness to them.
Oneiromancer
is a great album from Bismarck and I admire the band’s creative
choices in releasing an album that’s quite different to their
previous album. Though, like I said earlier in my review, I prefer
their debut album to this one but this is still a wonderfully complex
and deeply emotional album that still packs a powerful punch where
the riffs are concerned.
Excellent
and Highly Recommended.
Words
by Steve Howe
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