Straightforward and effective. While some might see this description as a severe criticism, I personally think that it is both difficult and noble to write simple yet interesting music, especially in highly codified and overcrowded genres. Void Odyssey are good students who did their homework and deserve all of our support for their first effort.
Three tracks, ordered from the shortest to the longest so that the band can take us by the hand and slowly guide us in their sonic universe. A production just dirty enough, full of fuzz and yet completely familiar to our ears. An artwork signed by MontDoom that presents all the classic ingredients of the genre with this amps tower, this flourishing yet rotting nature, these shamanic druids and the hallucinogenic shrooms. A logo that melts on your tongue like a buttered slice of bread with your tea… A basic recipe that is very appropriate.
After we reviewed the outside, let’s dissect the inside. With their stoner doom (with a pinch of sludge), the Slovakian show us everything they learned from listening too much to Electric Wizard and Monolord. Each riff is heavier than the previous one, played and repeated until it fuses with all the thoughts that flood our neuronal system. Then only, a lead guitar appears to take us to another place. As soon as this guitar becomes redundant, another full-on cholesterol riff kicks in and hits us behind the head.
To smoothen the experience and give this EP more homogeneity, the usual samples and the rare, softer melodic parts are used. Always perfectly timed, these are expected but brilliantly executed. I’d give a special mark to the excellent sampled scream on “Reefer Rites”, a very good idea!
What is the outcome for this first EP? Well, it gives you a taste of what hard work and a deep understanding of the genres tastes like. Of course, we all hope for the band to develop a stronger identity in the long run but let’s be objective for a second, releasing a straightforward and effective first effort, it’s not something most bands even achieve.
Last modified: 17 February 2022
