Ommadon ‘Part I’ CD 2010
Rising from the ashes of the dearly departed Snowblood, Ommadon strip back the post-metal finery of their previous band to give us only the ugly sludge-filled abyss that squatted at the heart of Scotland’s most unsung band. A black hole of sound populated only by a duo of dark wizards conjuring forth titanic riffs and colossal percussion. Nothing else is needed.
Guitar behemoth David Tobin and drum overlord Ewan MacKenzie take us on a half hour journey across two untitled tracks of slow-burning guitar and drum assault reminiscent of the Melvins ‘Roman Bird Dog’ minus the vocals and sucking bass undertow of Joe Preston, or a debased version of Sleep’s ‘Jerusalem’ for the Am Rep crowd, but starker and more unpleasant.
Track one takes a huge chugging riff of pure DOOM on a ten minute crawl through evolution – gaining and shedding chords across time, taking on subtly differing shades – even taking on the shape of Metallica’s ‘Wherever I May Roam’ at one point (!) – but always maintaining a central integrity and momentum. The riff snakes and bulldozes its way through the track until it collapses into shuddering dischord and whirring feedback, the drums long since collapsed under the sheer sonic weight of THAT guitar. They fought bravely.
The second track moves Ommadon into a colder, starker realm. The drums of Ewan MacKenzie display a powerful subtlety here as the guitars hum, fizz and sputter into life, emerging gradually from a cloud of boiling, roiling hiss, discord and short bursts of feedback into another gargantuan RIFF that shakes the earth like a VERY angry, VERY large Japanese monster-movie extra, closely followed by the sound of the drums s-t-r-a-i-n-i-n-g at the leash. This track is all about forcible restraint, to me, it sounds and feels like something HUGE that wants to do something TERRIBLE but is taking its sweet time to really cut loose. The whole track SEETHES, like an angry volcano about to erupt on some undesignated yet soon-to-come day. Beautiful, gripping stuff.
Ommadon verge on being the sludge-metal equivalent of those darkest of dark Japanese psych overlords Fushitsusha, so profound is the blackness at the heart of their sound, and so mysterious is their presentation. No real information on their website, no clues given on the beautifully packaged CD, save only an email address and a website address. A crown, stamped on front and back of the folded cardboard envelope their only mark.
What more can one say about the dark sorcerers of Ommadon? They dragged me into a black hole and put me directly in the path of a titanic dark behemoth, yet STILL I want MORE. Does THAT say enough?
Label: Self Released
Website: www.ommadon.co.uk
Scribed by: Paul Robertson
