renkls Now this is a monster of a piece of music. I am sort of surprised to find this on here. But it is progressive, certainly, as a single 45 minute, progressing math rock ASSAULT, with emphasis on assault for good reason. For those not familiar with Orthrelm's musical work prior to this, it is often jazzy, fast paced and short running bursts of avant madness. This is completely different. If you don't make it through the first fifteen, hell, even ten minutes at first, then that is to be expected. It's an audial affront, avant grade at its most powerful and confronting. But that doesn't make it any less then a masterpiece. I haven't explained what it actually is yet. OV is essentially based on repetition. A hell of a lot of them. For the first seventeen minutes, the guitarist Mike Barr is caught in three note guitar riffing which changes about six or seven times in those seventeen minutes. The drums don't change, except with the guitar. There are no vocals over the entire length. To call this an endurance piece is mandatory. What you find however, is that under the unceasing noise is human error. There are times where the drums and guitar touch each other in perfect duel pacing, and others where the guitar plays at a different speed, etc. The riffs go faster and slower. There is a lot of depth in the segments which run up to three or four minutes before a half second segue links to the next marathon riff. At times it sounds like there are up to four guitars going at once. I have heard on other reviewing sites that this is great music for meditation. If anything, it is fantastic for learning to transcend audial assaults. It is a subjective five star rating. I expect, if people review this aside from me, it will garner many one star ratings. I think that all music stands outside rating confines, and this is one shining example of 'you either love it or hate it'. By the way, it does get shorter half way through, changing riffs unexpectedly every now and then. If you make it that far, it may be your cup of tea. I seldom listen to it, but I admire the concept, and for that, I give a subjective five stars. It probably took less time for Orthrelm to come up with the riffs then it did to write the review for this.

Conor Fynes 'OV' - Orthrelm (2/10)

Although it is obviously my number one goal in music to find the best work and new sounds to digest, a side-project of mine has also been to fine albums that either completely contradict my concept of taste, or strike me as not only being bad, but downright unlistenable. Although Orthrelm's 'OV' has quite a few people who have found something 'great' in it, it is one such album that completely goes against how I enjoy music. Of course, the possibility is always left open that an album of this nature will revolutionize my views on music. In the case of 'OV' sadly, shred drone metal is not the pick of the day, or tomorrow, or probably ever. Comprised of a single forty minute composition, Orthrelm takes a handful of sloppy shred metal ideas, and draws them out to such a length and level of repetition that sanity may be lost half way through.

Usually, I would have plenty to say about the slight nuances and themes that pervade a forty minute piece. After all, they are usually a work of labour and love, and often meticulously crafted. Orthrelm may have put a lot of effort and care into creating 'OV', but my concerns lie with how the music has translated into the result I have heard, and am hearing. A two man group armed with nothing more than a handful of guitars and a drumkit, Orthrelm is not aiming for the lush arrangements and instrumentation that a typical progressive metal band has. You either have the chaotic drumming, or an unrelenting shred pattern that does not seem to give up. 'OV' opens up promisingly enough, with a bass note that pumps along, as if it were building up to something epic. By the time the overdrawn intro is up, a listener will have been filled in on virtually everything that transpires within the album. The bass disappears, and in its stead, there is an ear-piercing guitar shredding pattern. I cannot say it is even a 'guitar lick', because what comes out from the guitar does not sound like notes. Instead, three, or five, or ten minutes into hearing the exact same pattern sweeping up and down, Orthrelm's guitar sounds much less like an instrument, and much like a winged insect with baby-making on its mind.

I could say that there are more ideas to 'OV' than the shred idea, but that might imply that there is any sense of variety to this. Occasionally- and I do mean only occasionally- Orthrelm will break out of the shred to amp up the noise with some chaotic riff-chugs plucked right out of the math rock handbook. After being virtually condemned to the notion that nothing else would ever change in the sound, it is a pleasant shock to hear them do something else, but after a few seconds, the listener is treated to a variation on the same bloody shredding . By the end of this catastrophe, headaches were inevitable. Now, to those listeners who have found solace and enjoyment in 'OV', I do understand that the seemingly endless repetition does attempt to reach that feeling of being lured into a trance and hypnotized, and as unlistenable as this entire album was, the drumming remained fairly intense. However, when an album becomes a labour of willpower to properly sit through, it becomes clear that Orthrelm's music won't be appealing to me any time soon.