o.68 ‘Elend’ CD 2010

Funeral doom with a decidedly progressive edge is what unusually monikered German one-man outfit O.68 purvey. All of the usual trappings of funeral doom are present – crawling, dead-stop riffs, elegiac harmonised guitar à la early Paradise Lost or My Dying Bride, atmospheric keyboards, guttural, sub-sonic vocals and a general sense of epic mourning – but where O.68 differ from most is in the decidedly more complex nature of the musical passages contained within ‘Elend’.

Dusan Belohlavek, the mastermind behind O.68 – also known as Odpörovät 1968 – is clearly a man with an ambitious scope, as for every relatively straightforward funereal dirge such as opener ‘Mournau’, there are numbers such as the rhythmically complex (although still mostly leaden paced) ‘Nothing But Death Remains’ – halfway through which emerges a somewhat strange sounding Sabbath-esque section; made all the more strange due to an unsettlingly insectile chittering vocal croak and the fact that it appears that all of the ‘guitar’ parts on ‘Elend’ are in fact delivered using a bass guitar – the stop-start doom stutter of ‘Kremation’, the strangely-rock inflected and upbeat intro to ‘Zeitgeist Nokturne’, and the extended audio-collage of ringing church bells that closes ‘Mortal’. Closing track ‘The Lowest Day’ manages to combine aspects of everything that has previously occurred on ‘Elend’ during it’s quarter of an hour duration, being as it is a combination of deeply slow funeral crawl, ambient power-drone and dramatic shuddering fits and starts.

However, Belohlavek’s ambitions and ability seem to be undermined somewhat by the overall sound of ‘Elend’ and his unfortunate reliance on a drum-machine for all of the rhythms therein. The artificial, blocky feel of the drum-machine robs much of the material of it’s sense of grandeur and space and the somewhat lifeless, no pun intended, production flattens everything out into esentially two tones – the low-end, and the higher, harmonised parts. As a result, the album sounds overly claustrophobic and very much like a rather longer than average demo recording. This is a crying shame as Belohlavek is clearly a very talented individual, and given a more naturalistic production and some real drums, O.68 could easily sound overwhelmingly towering and majestic.

Mention MUST be given, also, to the absolutely stunning job that Belohlavek and Ominous Silence have done with the packaging of ‘Elend’. It really does look superb – a matt-black, two-pocket gatefold sleeve, printed onto in silver ink and containing a wonderfully dark glossy booklet. A first-rate job indeed.

I try not to be negative when I review, but in this case the negativity is more frustration than anything else. I like the music of O.68 very much, and I can hear what ‘Elend’ COULD be…and THAT is what frustrates me. I WANT it to be all of that, and more.

My hope is that next time Belohlavek will have a recording budget of enough to enable him to use a flesh and blood drummer, and to really put his musical vision out there for us to hear in all of it’s truly epic scale.

Label: Ominous Silence Records
Website: www.myspace.com/o68

Scribed by: Paul Robertson