OBAKE — Obake (review)

OBAKE — Obake album cover Album · 2011 · Sludge Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
Unitron
Obake's debut is primarily gloomy ambient sludge metal with elements of doom metal. The album opens up with the heavy distorted guitars of 'Human Genome Project', with Lef's low growl soon kicking in. The entire album uses a large amount of distortion with the guitars, which fits in perfectly with the menacing atmosphere created with all of the ambient and doom elements. The distortion I'm talking about is the fuzzy low-fi sound that much of the guitar work has on this album. The next song 'Dog Star Ritual' has a perfect balance between distortion-heavy guitar and ambient passages, with great unique vocals by Lef. 'The End of It All' comes next with a a menacing ambient intro with middle-eastern style vocals before the distorted guitar starts playing with Lef's menacing growls. The next two songs are entirely ambient, the first being 'Széchenyi' which has some very unique percussion. It has strange rhythms such as mimicking the sound of a ball bouncing. The other ambient track, 'Letters to Ghosts' is a much more straightforward ambient track with quiet and slow drum beats.

My favorite song on the album though by far is 'The Omega Point', which is haunting, menacing, distorted, ambient, and droning all at the same time. The song begins with low whispers by Lef and gloomy ambiance combined with moans that would not sound out of place at a haunted house attraction. This continues until the grinding guitar comes in becoming increasingly distorted as the song continues. This album is one of those albums that just flows so well, you simply don't want to stop the flow of the album. One other thing I need to mention are the vocals. Lef is one of the most unique vocalists I've heard, using some pretty unconventional vocal styles here. From the croaks on 'Dog Star Ritual', to growls, to the ghostly moans on 'The Omega Point', this guy is one talented vocalist.

Overall, I highly recommend this album to anyone who loves both distorted and gloomy sludge/doom metal and ambient music. If you want an album that flows perfectly for a long walk or playing through a video game, this is perfect.
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