Omega Massif
Karpatia
Denovali Records
The moment you begin listening to an Omega Massif album, there’s not a heavier, darker moment occurring anywhere else in the world; it was true of their 2006 debut EP Kalt, it was true of their 2007 debut full-length Geisterstadt, and now the same can be said for their latest album, Karpatia. Knowing the kind of power Omega Massif is capable of harnessing, I feared putting the headphones anywhere near their desired mark lest my skull succumb to the inevitable decibel rape and cave in upon first riff impact. To say the German instrumental band is crushing is an understatement. Many will label ‘em drone sludge, post-metal, or atmospheric doom, but each of those are just rusty links in the thick chain tied to the ten ton anchor that is their sound, which rests in the deepest part of the ocean’s black crevices, a place still and breathless, a place untouched by humanity. Whether drenched in feedback, antagonizing you with its gentler, swelling passages, or unleashing a resounding and brutal assault of monolithic proportions, Karpatia is stone cold terror. You might want to think about finding a happy place with strong walls before you drop the needle on this one, man.
Listen to “Wölfe” from Karpatia!
Posted by Jeff on Sep 12 2011 in Reviews
Tags: anchor, assault, atmospheric, black, breathless, brutal, cave, chain, cold, crevice, crushing, dark, decibel, Denovali Records, doom, drone, feedback, Geisterstadt, German, heavy, humanity, instrumental, Kalt, Karpatia, monolithic, ocean, Omega Massif, post-metal, Power, rape, resounding, riff, rusty, skull, sludge, stone, swelling, terror, ton, Wolfe
In the first movie, you’ve got these six chicks, all of ‘em adrenaline junkies, who take a vacation in the Appalachian Mountains to go cave diving. Although it’s more like cave crawling, because these are unexplored caves without much room, see, and since the goal of these movies, as much as I can gather, is to make you squirm one way or another, they lean heavily on the claustrophobic button. So there they are, crawling through rocky cracks deep in the Earth’s belly, in these unmarked, unexplored caves (because that’s more of a thrill despite the fact that no one knows where you are) with dust, debris, and water falling all around them. They don’t really know where the hell they’re going, so they just keep making their way deeper and deeper. Then there’s a mini avalanche of some sort and their only way out has just been cut off. The rocks also fell on one of their equipment bags; the one with the rope, so that’s a major setback. Anyway, this shit goes on for about an hour, and will only really make you uncomfortable if you hate the dark and have a major fear of being trapped in a small space. Or buried alive. For everyone else it’s 60 minutes of watching six women crawl around in caves. But then, finally, the cave monsters show up.