ODIOUS: “EQUILIBRIUM TOOL”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Oct 232024
 

(We present NCS contributor Didrik Mešiček‘s review of the first album in nine years from the Egyptian metal band Odious, which was released earlier this month.)

Have you ever thought about how much of the metal you listen to actually comes from about five, or at most ten, countries? And while those countries are great at producing some quality bands, it’s a shame massive parts of the world have a poorly developed metal scene, and a lot of those nations have unique takes on music as well as cool instruments that could fit wonderfully within metal.

This is why I’m often very excited when there are bands popping up in various Asian or African countries and why I’m talking about the new album, Equilibrium Tool, from the Egyptian band Odious today. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DISARMONIA MUNDI, BOSSE-DE-NAGE, ODIOUS, MAMMOTH MAMMOTH, HELZGLORIAM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Mar 172015
 

 

I got enough of a break from my day job over the last two days that I was able to listen to some new music, and I’ve collected some of what I heard in this post. I knew the previous work of some of these bands and therefore wasn’t surprised by the quality. Other songs came as complete surprises — and very nice ones.

DISARMONIA MUNDI

I had lost track of this Italian duo. The last time we wrote about them was two and a half years ago. Of course, that was around the last time they released any music, and their last album was 2009’s The Isolation Game. Thanks to Andy Synn, I made the happy discovery yesterday that they have a new album coming out in June on Coroner Records named Cold Inferno. There’s a big head on the cover. Continue reading »

METAL FROM NORTH AFRICA (Part 3): ODIOUS

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Jul 092010
 

Sadly, we now come to the end of our 3-part post on Metal From North Africa, though we will revisit the subject in the future. To close this out, we’re back to Egypt, where we started, and a band called Odious.

Odious has been around since 1998, and as best we can tell, they were one of the first Egyptian extreme metal bands to release a professional album — 2007’s Mirror of Vibrations. Before that, they self-released and distributed a demo EP called Summoned by Night, which led to their signing in 2005 by a Greek label called Sleaszy Rider Records and the release of that 2007 album.

Of all the music we’ve reviewed in this survey, it’s probably the most challenging to hear, but it may be the most interesting. It’s the most uncompromisingly faithful to traditional black metal, but also the music that most heavily incorporates not only oriental music but also traditional instruments.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »