Later this month Void Wanderer Productions will release a debut EP fittingly named The Everlasting Pain by the black metal band Ominøs. In vivid but accurate terms, the label describes the EP’s four haunting and harrowing tracks as a means of “entering ancient gateways to lands of death, where happiness is sucked out of souls, safety is distorted into agony and dreams are crushed into nightmares,” as “ice-cold screams chant accursed poetry about the inevitable demise of humanity”.
What we have for you today as an even more vivid rendering of what this Dutch duo have achieved on the EP is the premiere of the EP’s closing track “Oh Darkness My Sun“. Lyrically, it is a dire meditation on suffering and sorrow, where darkness becomes the sun and the protagonist yearns for its victory over light. Musically, it evokes unearthly nightside realms, freezing temperatures, and indeed the vanquishing of light and the shivering splendor of darkness.
Photography: Fallynfinder
You’ll notice immediately in this song that Ominøs have engineered a guitar tone that’s harsh yet radiates a supernatural atmosphere. The opening harmony sounds as if it’s ringing from within cold catacombs where haunted spirits still dwell. It’s a chilling and sinister sensation, and although the murmur of the bass and the thump of the drums is more subdued, there’s a feeling of encroaching menace in those sounds too…
… which makes it all the more surprising when a vividly strummed acoustic guitar suddenly displaces the wraithlike riffing. Equally surprising is the sudden banishment of that quick experience by terrorizing screams, blasting drums, hurtling bass tones, assaulting guitars, and high-flying synth waves. That phase is no less supernatural than before, but definitely more feverish and wrenching.
Yet Ominøs aren’t finishes leading us through the turns of the frightening musical labyrinth they have made. The fever subsides and a conjoining of guitars and keyboards ring out a depressive but beguiling melody, elegant and glittering with brilliance but ghostly. As the scorching screams resume, the music again sends chills down the spine, building again toward an expansive cataclysm of agony and despair that sounds like an intrusion of hopelessness from another world — or a vision of this world’s worthless future.
OMINØS IS:
Marcel Tjepkema: vocals
Ruben Vermeulen: guitar, drums, bass, synths
The EP was recorded and mixed by Ruben Vermeulen at Funus Official Studio, and it was mastered by Headroom Mastering. It will be released on June 23rd in digital and cassette tape formats via Bandcamp and YouTube, and on June 24th via Spotify. It comes recommended for fans of Darkthrone, Emperor, and Beherit. For more info about the release, check the links below.
VOID WANDERER:
https://voidwandererproductions.bandcamp.com/music
OMINØS:
https://www.facebook.com/ominosofficial/
https://instagram.com/ominosofficial