Review: NE OBLIVISCARIS “Urn”

NE OBLIVISCARIS “Urn”
Season of Mist records

Please, somebody erase my memory because I want to hear it one more time like the first time! New Ne Obliviscaris album is a modern classic, a symphony and maybe a top of the band’s creativity.

I don’t want to offend previous albums, but there wasn’t such melody saturated and such detail-weighted album from Australian progressive metalers. And it’s quite hard to imagine now how it can be surpassed.

An album opens with “Libera” that contains two parts: “Saturnine Spheres” and instrumental “Ascent of Burning Moths”. It’s really hard to describe such synthesis of aggressive metal and classical (worth Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi) elements, because their splitting harmony almost ideal. In such case clean vocals are quite annoying for me, but in this album it vowed with growl so organically and sounds convincingly.

“Intra Venus” continues with clean vocals, which increase power and starts to compete with growl for the place in listeners’ hearts. There are also a lots of classical music instruments, which make this composition open for big number of interpretations.  “Intra Venus” can be listened for hundred times, and every time something new can be found.

After first three songs I was doubted that ‘Urn’ will continue the same. So the next “Eyrie”, such lyrical and romantic… Until the moment when blast-beats and growl start. All that I wanted and expected. Seems like the band’s successful musical decisions are some kind of mystical winning. I can’t explain it other way. It’s such viscous in the beginning and such gloomy and impetuous after. But when I tried to describe it, I had only one word in my head – “elasticity”. A triumph of heavy sound and an art of violin.The ending second part is named “As Embers Dance in Our Eyes”. I told a lot about the sound, so what can I add, if the music is almost perfect and I have nothing to prick up? Maybe I can tell about explosive extreme vocals, but it’s better to hear it once.

With this I’ll say that the violin is unrivaled here, bass (it happens so rarely) is juicy and it’s over a whole album. And what about the lyrics… Well, it needs to be heard and ridden. Here you have a little example from the last song:

“Together, forever… of all

Tomorrow, we dream no more

Our gods lay in quiescence

The end, true freedom

Baroque’n forms ‘neath mourningstars

Where the moon will wither

Here, we are of the sun

We become the earth“

Sometimes it sounds familiar to The Faceless, which is absolutely natural, because their genres are intersect. There is a feeling the band is rising and ‘Urn’ have all the chances to be one of the best progressive albums of a year.

‘Urn’ was released in October, 27 by Season Of Mist.