AN NCS INTERVIEW: ODRADEK ROOM

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 192021
 

 

(Comrade Aleks has brought us another very interesting interview, this time with Artyom Krikhtenko, the main man behind the fascinating Ukrainian band Odradek Room, whose newest album was released not long ago through a division of Solitude Productions.)

Odradek Room (from Mariupol, Ukraine) is one of those rare bands with their own vision and ways of unleashing their creative stream. Named after Franz Kafka’s imaginary creature, they have held on to an abstract emotional doom-death pattern with progressive feeling (and avant-garde edge) for about twelve years. They paint vast canvases of despair and grief in gloomy and violent colours, but this elegant and sometimes complex mix has its play of light and shadow.

Odradek Room’s third full-length album Painted Mind was released about seven weeks ago, and together with the band’s mastermind Artyom Krikhtenko (vocals, guitars, keyboards), we try to explore Odradek’s nature for you. Continue reading »

A DOOMED DESCENT (PART 4): ODRADEK ROOM, VOKONIS, OLD NIGHT

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Oct 192017
 

 

(We present Part 4 of a series of reviews by our Russian connoisseur of all things doom, Comrade Aleks, and today he shares impressions of, and music from, three more 2017 releases. Go here to check out Part 1, here for Part 2, and here for Part 3.)

Some say that Black Sabbath or Pentagram are the only real doom bands, some add that you shouldn’t forget Candlemass and Cathedral, then another one reminds us about My Dying Bride or Esoteric. Doom takes many forms.

It takes the form of Kafkian surrealistic mind journeys as Odradek Room show it. It may reveal itself through straight primordial riffs decorated with psycho or prog influences, as Vokonis preach. And it may appear in the melancholic tunes of Old Night. You never know… So choose your own doom. Here you will find three new aspects of the Doom Cult. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ODRADEK ROOM — “MIRROR LABYRINTH”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  4 Responses »
Aug 292017
 

 

“The Cares of a Family Man” is a short story written between 1914 and 1917 by Franz Kafka about a creature called Odradek. According to The Font of All Human Knowledge, “The creature has drawn the attention of many philosophers and literary critics, who have all attempted to interpret its meaning”.

At first glance the creature appears to be “only a broken-down remnant”, “old, broken-off bits of thread, knotted and tangled together” but with odd wooden crossbars that allow it to “stand upright as if on two legs”. Yet although “the whole thing looks senseless enough”, it is “in its own way perfectly finished”. When it laughs, “it is only the kind of laughter that has no lungs behind it”, with a sound “rather like the rustling of fallen leaves”. To the narrator, “the idea that he is likely to survive me I find almost painful”.

It is from that perplexing story, and that word Odradek of uncertain origin, that the Ukrainian band Odradek Room chose their own name, a vehicle for creating progressive metal with a foundation of doom. Hypnotic Dirge released their debut album Bardo. Relative Reality in 2013, and on October 10 they will release the band’s second album, A Man of Silt, in conjunction with BadMoodMan Music (a side label of Solitude Productions). What we have for you today is the premiere of a song from the new album named “Mirror Labyrinth“. Continue reading »

OBSCURITY: GEVURAH, SYN:DROM, THRAWSUNBLAT, AND ODRADEK ROOM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Mar 242013
 

We’re sitting on a cornucopia of promos for forthcoming releases by relatively high-profile bands such as Amorphis, Arsis, Children of Bodom, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Finntroll, Heaven Shall Burn, and Hypocrisy. We will be reviewing some of those, and more that I haven’t named. But this morning I felt like exploring new music from more obscure bands whose music I’d never heard. As usual, there’s no rhyme or reason to what I picked.

GEVURAH

The obscurity of this two-man Montreal band is likely to be short-lived since they’ve now been signed by Profound Lore. PL plans to release Gevurah’s five-track debut EP Necheshirion (Hebrew for “snake-like”) on May 28. I haven’t yet seen much publicity about this news, but I did find a stream of one song from the EP, “Flesh Bounds Desecrated”.

That song is an unmitigated aural assault of blackened death metal (or deathened black metal). With almost overpowering force, the band deliver a fast-moving wave-front of blasting drums and harrowing guitar and bass licks, with raw mid-range vocals that scrape like sharpened nails on skin. Continue reading »