Diminished
Leafless trees, a gloaming sky and a nearly noticeable cold, thats what you see and feel when you observe the cover of Diminish. This atmosphere spreaded by the cover also reflects itself in the sound, but how exactly? Read here, if you want to know what defines the sound and which genres are represented.
Ov Hollowness might be one of the youngest project publishing material this year, consisiting of one member. The band was founded last year and self-released their first demo in early 2010 and the debut in august.
You maybe think: “Oh no, not just another one-man-black-metal-project”, but nevertheless you should know, that although Ov Hollowness has the typical solo-project problems, but the positive aspects are convincing as well.
According to the cover, the winterly atmosphere takes it’s toll in the general mood of the album using heavy and cold melodies. The vocals focus on sustained and blurred growls, but not all alone, since the clean parts are also satisfying, as you can see in Enshrouded in Obscurity.
In terms of songwriting you won’t find any big flaws, due to the arc of suspense the album doesn’t become boring at all, solely the melodies seem to be quite similar at certain points and dim the total. Also, the production doesn’t give you any reason to complain, since the ambient-part leads to qualitative work and in case of self-production you pardon some imperfections.
Conclusion:
Since the album should have been pure atmospheric music, the result Mark R. presents is quite heavy on black metal – but that’s great! Of course you find the mentioned solo-project-problems, but nevertheless you should appreciate the high quality of music. If you like bands like Gallowbraid, you should visit the myspace page and listen to the album!
Rating: 85/100
Playing Time: 42:13
Tracklist:
- Diminished To The Cold
- Silence
- Enshrouded in Obscurity
- Crestfallen
- Rest In Chaos
- Cursed To Die Again And Forever
