Angry Metal Guy

Oskoreien // Illusions EP
Rating: 4.0/5.0 — Great! Looking forward to a full length.
Label: Unsigned (Name your price for it at Band Camp)
Websites: oskoreien.bandcamp.com | myspace.com/oskoreienband
Release Dates: Dec. 31st, 2009

Oskoreien is another one of those DIY projects that I was directed to which delighted me to check out. There was a time when you, as a metal guy, probably got friended by Oskoreien on MySpace, when the creator was in full-on promo mode. The tracks that I remembered hearing were very much in the Ensiferum / Wintersun kind of vein. Lots of sweep picking and sort of melodic death influences. So when I got my hands on the Illusions EP I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Turns out that Mr. Valena had released something I wasn’t expecting at all: basically post-black metal. Illusions opens with a short acoustic passage and then launches into the first 13 minute track, a piece called “Transcendence” in good form. The melodies are solid, but simplistic. The guitar work on here isn’t like Ensiferum or Wintersun at all, but instead much more black metal: trem-picked over blast beats and minimalistic, with very little ornamentation. This doesn’t mean, however, that there is no musical sophistication here—just the opposite, in many ways this material feels much more sophisticated than Velana’s earlier work (not to say that it was bad, mind you). The ability to take simple passages, simple harmonies and beautiful chord progressions and make them shine like he has shows a solid understanding of composition and just an all around good ear.

These tracks are quite atmospheric, as one could expect. They land firmly in the Ulver and Agalloch territory with reference to both the acoustic guitar style and composition styles. Jay’s voice is also very similar to Garm’s old singing voice in the early Arcturus, Ulver days like what one hears on Kveldssanger and La Masquerade Infernale. He has a very forceful, vibratoless kind of delivery that is equal parts beautiful and creepy. Sometimes it sounds a little bit too forced for my liking, but it fits the atmosphere perfectly. And let’s face it, he must be doing something right if I *want* to listen to 23 minutes of music split into only two tracks.

My biggest complaint about this is the production, but not in the way that one would expect. The guitars have a lot of reverb on them, which sort of pushes them back in the mix and with the drums so high in the mix, but also so obviously a drum machine, it feels a little jarring sometimes. These are quality samples, but they have that sort of modern “tinny drum” kind of sound that I think should probably be avoided. Other than that, this record shines. Both tracks are well-composed, well-performed and worth checking out. And, once again, it’s a “name your own price” kind of deal, so I strongly suggest you go and download the thing and donate to Oskoreien’s future.

You know what’s a stupid metal trend?  The 3.5 minute interlude with stupid soundscapes–these days, the trend is actually always involving the forging of iron or the angryness of trolls somewhere.  I don’t know where this started, so I’m going to blame Ulver.  Yeah, sure, Bergtatt was a great record.  It was really interesting and it had lots of cool stuff going on.  The stupid soundscape interlude, however, wasn’t.  Nope, just some guy running on crushed boxes (OK, maybe it was supposed to sound like snow, but it was definitely crushed boxes).  Vintersorg used it with great stupidity to interrupt one of his songs on Ödemarkens Son with the trickling of water because nothing screams metal like.. TRICKLING FOREST STREAM!!  (RAAAH!) It was used by Agalloch, but that was pretty much just them copying Ulver (actually, wasn’t The Mantel just them copying Ulver? Huh.  How ’bout that shit?).  In any case, in those cases it wasn’t super bad.  Just one or two places.. one could easily get through them without problem.  Just skip it, no biggy.  Right?

Well, the idiocy hit its zenith with Finntroll’s very “interesting,” but immensely annoying, use of 4 minute interlude tracks  which were apparently of people eating beans around a fire on Visor om Slutet.  What. The. Fuck?  Seriously, what an incredible waste of fucking space, plastic and time.  It is obvious that the band had only 25 minutes worth of acoustic material to record, but instead of just putting out a cute little EP where Finntroll goes “folk” or whatever, they decided to make it.. I dunno… Annoying?  Yeah, pretty much.  Or stupid.  The annoyance that I had with this record, was fortunately tracked–that is, I can skip the crap.  On the other hand Ásmegin did them one worse and putting a fucking crying baby throughout the whole second half of their otherwise AMAZING album Hin Vordende Sod & Sø.  How irritating is that?  Totally irritating.  I mean, I know you guys are trying to be original and interesting.. but stop.  Please, stop.  It hurts my brain.

I’ve been listening to Crimfall’s newest record, and it’s good.  But seriously, I’ve heard so much of this stuff before and it just makes me want to scream.  Since when did it become necessary and/or OK to put these stupid interlude tracks in everywhere?  Yeah, the album intro with the over the top orchestra or some stupid gore movie quote is now apparently obligatory.. I guess it’s not going anywhere, so I’ll have to live with it.  But can we stop with the “gazing into the past” sounds created in the studio in order to give your record some sort of stupid feel that doesn’t go at all with your over-produced orchestrations?  My god!  Just fucking stop it.  Not only that, if you’re going to include this stupidity for no apparent reason at all, then FOR THE LOVE OF THE METAL GODS: TRACK IT!  Make it different tracks so that I can skip your efforts to take yourself seriously as artists.  Stop it.  Stop. Stop. STOP!

I urge Steven Colbert to put these people on notice.  And I openly condemn this stupid metal trend.  Soundscape interludes: go fuck yourself!