Ever since 2007 or 2008, Circle of
Ouroborus has kept me under its curse with a plethora of more and
more brilliant releases under their moniker. I'm not even going to go
into details of which album is the best and so on, but to make a
general distinction between the various styles they play, it would be
something like this: there's a few (entirely or semi-) acoustic folk
albums, then there's the crunching, harsh demo tape sounding
releases, and then there's the fuzzy, ethereal albums that wander in
some other dimensions with synth-like guitars and Klemi's weeping
clean vocals.
Abrahadabra belongs to the third
category, and in some respect could also be seen as the third
installment into the series of "ethereal" albums, starting
with Eleven Fingers and continuing with The Lost Entrance of the Just
– but just to make clear, the buzzy and flowing atmosphere has been
there since the band's first steps already.
And what comes to this album's music,
it's as splendid as before. The scheme is very similar to the
previous two full-lengths: almost indecipherable synthwalls of
guitars providing the mellow background for the unpolished and heavy
drumming, and most importantly for the lead melodies that are an
essential part of Circle of Ouroborus' sound nowadays. The general
mood of the album is strongly inclined to melancholy, but there are a
couple of hopeful tunes such as "Like Silent Meadows", and
then some pure hate-filled riffs like the one that begins "These
Days and Years to Kill".
Is there, then, truly unforgettable
melody making on Abrahadabra? Something as deeply cutting as
Moonflares' "Walk Through Me"? Oh yes. It's not like every
fourtyfive minutes of the LP were pure splendor melody-wise, but I
think that e.g. "Conspiracy", "Breathing Slowly"
and "Dementia Praecox" deserve their place in the hall of
the greatest CoO riffs. And, in fact, there's not a single track I'd
skip while listening to the album, unlike Eleven Fingers' "Staining
the Paper to Create", for example.
Lyrically, Abrahadabra dwells in hefty
despair: "Because in the end there are no reasons / There are no
aeons, no seasons / Just the hollow hole, hard to fill / Just these
days and years to kill". But in spite of the apparent
hopelessness, Klemi has never gone astray from the occult aspect of it
all. The album's title already paints rather deep ideas of the
otherworldly – and the cover art is a rather clear example as well.
Song-wise I tend to think that "Six Hands" covers the
album's occult side the strongest, though my ideas can be totally
wrong. But I sense a strong connection between the word abrahadabra
and this song: when the word abrahadabra is sorted out into vowels
and consonants, we get 5 + 6 = the five-pointed pentagram (Microcosm)
and the six-pointed hexagram (Macrocosm). These I find to be the "Two
hearts of duality – the keys to infinity" and, as it is,
abrahadabra (and the significant number 11) symbolises the
accomplishment of the Great Work.
Like every previous album of the band,
also Abrahadabra took a rather long time to open. On the first rounds
there was almost nothing that stuck to my head, but now a day rarely
passes when I wouldn't listen to its catchy melodies and great
atmospheres. Needless to say, this is a strong addition to the band's
evergrowing discography, and should not be missed. Just give it a
little time. When viewing my score it is to be remembered that I'm a
hopeless CoO fanatic and the rating should be regarded as such –
those who hate Klemi's atonal singing and all the other plain weird
aspects therein won't find anything here that would change their
opinion.
4.5 / 5
great review
ReplyDelete