Oerheks - Official Website
Landschapsanachronismen |
Belgium
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Review by TheOneNeverSeen on March 12, 2023.
Following its awesome 2022 debut, Oerheks released another demo with an even more difficult title and roughly the same dark atmosphere. It only has 2 songs, but, due to their length, Landschapsanachronismen has enough time to immerse the listener in its beautiful grimness.
The sound is nearly the same as on Cagghenvinna: raw (yet well-mixed and also combining nicely with each other) guitars, simple yet appropriate drumming and desperate vocals. The song structure is also mostly unchanged aside from the lengthy acoustic passages being used rather than ambient fragments, the voice samples is also exactly like the ones scattered throughout the band’s first demo. The monotonous yet evolving over time atmospheric black metal/DSBM riffs are successful at creating an intense, despondent mood. 'Een Eenzaat In Het Landschap' is pure atmospheric black metal in terms of its spirit, while the second track is closer to DSBM in my opinion, its riffs could’ve easily been a part of a, say, Nocturnal Depression or Xasthur album. Just like the band’s debut, Landschapsanachronismen is consistent in terms of the quality of its riffs and never gets boring, keeping the listener engrossed in its somber atmosphere. 'Een Oude Wijsheid Werd Hier Geveld' is especially remarkable in that sense, having a similar feeling to the band’s best song so far, 'Door Doornen Overtogen'.
The album’s lyrics are highly enjoyable. While neither of the two songs are as poetic as 'Stilte, Deel één: Een Storm Der Tijd' (the lines "A deeply rooted path/Set off by a dream I never had" are just something), they nonetheless offer an interesting atmosphere and mysterious imagery. My favorite fragments would probably be "The tears of anachronism cut deep scars/A miss for what I never knew/An old wisdom that settled inside me/And I dreamt away" and "An ancient wisdom was felled here/Like bleeding bodies under the sun/Flowing juice, shiny axes/My landscape is bleeding", they alone are more captivating than the vast majority of ABM lyrics out there.
So, H. (will these aliases get any more creative?) has produced another very solid atmospheric black metal record. I am eagerly waiting for a full-length, for if the band’s demos are this good (honestly, I think they could’ve easily been EPs considering their quality), an album must be highly enjoyable at least.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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