Tuesday, December 25, 2012

... OBELYSKKH "White Lightning'"

White Lightnin’ is the second release (2012) of the 4 piece stoner doom band OBELYSKKH from Nürnberg/Germany. It consists of 7 tracks with a total playing time of about 64 minutes.

If I had to describe this album in one sentence I’d say it is a heavy space trip into Doom, but the vehicle is a camel train rather than a space ship.

I’m going to write some more sentences though…

With the opener Enochian Keys the caravan lifts off into a trippy psychedelic atmosphere carried by oriental sounds. It is totally clear very soon though, that this won’t be an easy trip. You’ll have to deal with a great amount of different atmospheres and soundscapes, from a trippy calmness over a mantra like trance-inducing repetitiveness, spacey post rock to the dirty, sludgy, low end skull crushing heaviness. And all this is crammed with loving references and various influences.

This sounds like too much of everything? Like an incoherent chaos? Quite the contrary is the case. With a supertight songwriting taking unpredictable paths and turns, an excellent instrumental work (I include the vocals here as an additional instrument) and musicians playing off each other so well that it’s almost creepy, OBELYSKKH take you on a sonic journey with a carefully planned route, with stops in different places, where repetitiveness is not boring, but a welcomed relaxation of the senses and a perfect preparation for the surging up of the massive heavy sludge assault, and where the prolonging slow-down leads right to the point where it almost hurts – almost!! Release at the right moment is extremely delicious!

OBELYSKKH create different arcs of tension that sustain the track, build bridges between them or span even across the whole album. The tracks merge and yet they each keep their own atmospheric focus.

And finally a careful and sensitive production rounds out the album very well.

This is not an easy trip at all, as I said before. It demands concentration and endurance, but it’s much worth the effort. The combination of the challenging intricacy and the beastly raw heaviness is highly enjoyable and remains thrilling even beyond the 666th (about) listen.


words by Ulla Roschat


https://www.facebook.com/TheObelyskkhRitual
http://www.mainstreamrecords.de/




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