We’re about to premiere a complete debut album of modern death metal from the Italian band Olamot, one that’s brutish and bludgeoning but also a whirligig for the head and fuel for nightmares.
We’ll explain in more detail what we mean by that, but let’s begin by quoting some of the background information furnished in the press materials offered on behalf of the Lethal Scissor label, which will release the album on April 29th:
OLAMOT started in 2021 from the minds of Daniele Boccali (FICTIO SOLEMNIS) and Edoardo Casini (XENOFACTION, DESOURCE), eager to create a musical concept which develops a story lyrically and conceptually ideated by Edoardo Casini.
The first chapter started in 2022 with the release of Realms via Lethal Scissor Records, a highly successful 4 track EP which featured the contribution of many renowned musicians and artists, such as Francesco Ferrini (FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE) and Jei Doublerice (DESPITE EXILE). With this first effort the band told the story of Raziel, an individual who aspires to ally with the Devil to become a divinity himself.
The second album, the full-length Path of Divinity, sees the band in a bigger context encompassing 9 songs of extreme brutality. The new chapter of the story, based on Raziel’s quest to escape from Hell, musically further develops the intense and profound layers of sound showcased on the EP.
Now for more of our own reactions.
As is often the case Olamot chose to begin Path of Divinity with an instrumental introductory track that’s a somewhat different experience than what will follow it. Entitled “Eternal Sorrow“, it delivers a gloomy ringing arpeggio backed by the distressing shimmer of orchestral strings — but the experience becomes much more vast and frightening through the swell of ominous horns, pulverizing detonations, enormous rumbling beats, and what sounds like angels wailing in the heavens.
As introductory tracks go, this one sends shivers down the spine. The songs that follow send shivers in other ways, beginning with the cataclysm called “Everlasting Chains of Darkness“, which combines punishing jackhammer grooves, thoroughly unhinged vocals that roar and scream, and constantly contorting fretwork.
The guitars swarm and swirl, groan and shriek, above drum patterns and rhythmic pacing that mutate just as suddenly. Near the end, the song connects with the Intro track by transforming the music into a monument of dismal and desolate grandeur.
What that song demonstrates is that Olamot have impressive technical chops and an approach to song-writing that’s elaborate and designed to keep listeners off-balance. What it also demonstrates, just as the Intro track did, is that Olamot‘s music can be very damned malevolent and scary. Though we already got strong hints of that from the cover art and the song titles, actually experiencing it through the music is far more formidable.
And that’s one big takeaway from the album as a whole: It delivers ferocious, visceral power and maniacal vocal intensity as well as dexterous fretwork and impressively dynamic drum-and-bass adventures, but it shrouds all that in an atmosphere of malignant evil and stricken agony.
The orchestration plays an important role in the shrouding, but Olamot resist the temptation of other bands who use symphonic ingredients to strive for excesses of grandiosity. They use it instead judiciously, to magnify the scale and sweep of the malevolence and the downfall, or to add to the diabolical, otherworldly dimensions of the music.
In a similar nuanced way, they occasionally bring in rippling piano keys and electronic pulses, as well as fluidly serpentine clean-guitar soloing (with hints of prog in their influence), to enhance the music’s supernatural sensations and to get the adrenaline flowing faster.
As another way of keeping listeners on their toes, Olamot create juxtapositions of contrasting experiences, veering on a dime from hulking, brutish stomps and mechanistic hammering (accompanied by blistering drum-fills) to high-speed frenzies of dissonance and delirium, or from there to sweeping waves of distress and pain.
The atonal bludgeoning is stupefying heavy, so much so you may be tempted to call in specialists in foundation repair for a post-listening inspection of your abode; on the other end of the scale, the frenzies are so head-spinning that they’ll light up the eyes of tech-death enthusiasts. And along the way, while doing all that, they lace the music with melodic accents that are chilling. It all makes for an extremely impressive debut album.
Those are our thoughts. Here are some thoughts from the band:
On a sonic level, Path of Divinity shows an evolution towards a more symphonic style, offering a more cohesive and majestic sound than the first episode of the saga, Realms, taking inspiration from some great exponents of the genre such as Shadow of Intent and Fleshgod Apocalypse.
We did our best to combine intricate riffing, bone-crushing breakdowns and melodic openings with fast solos inspired by shredders such as Jeff Loomis, Jason Richardson and many others. We worked hard in order to obtain a cohesive and granitic sound experience capable of representing our idea of modern death metal to the maximum.
OTAMOT‘s Line-up is:
Daniele Boccali – Songwriting, Rhythm Guitars
Edoardo Casini – Lyrics, Vocal Lines & Concept, Solo Guitars
Matteo “Shade” Vitelli – Vocals
Lethal Scissor will release the album on CD and digital formats, with apparel. They recommend it for fans of Cryptopsy, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and Shadow Of Intent.
We’re also told: “The whole concept will also be developed through a series of books already being written by Edoardo Casini. The same narrative line will be covered by FICTIO SOLEMNIS’ next albums, where the story will be seen by the perspective of the Angel Metatron.”
PRE-ORDER:
https://www.lethalscissor.com/product/olamot-path-of-divinity-cd-preorder/
https://lethalscissor.bandcamp.com/album/path-of-divinity
OLAMOT:
https://www.facebook.com/Olamotband
https://www.instagram.com/olamotband/