OV HOLLOWNESS — The World Ends (review)

OV HOLLOWNESS — The World Ends album cover Album · 2013 · Atmospheric Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
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The World Ends (2013) is the third full-length album by Canadian black metal act Ov Hollowness. The band is one of a few solo vehicles of musician Mark R. Other would be Arkodaemik and Lost Resolve however both only have a single demo to their names making Ov Hollowness the man's most notable project. With the exception of the bass on the song An End everything is handled by Mark.

The music on The World Ends fits within the atmospheric black metal vein, but Ov Hollowness have a bit of a different mindset towards the music than many of the acts in this particular niche I've listened to, in that Mark R sacrifices absolutely none of the more traditional black metal aggression and anger meaning that The World Ends is still quite intense for an atmospheric black metal record. With this approach to the music there are of course times where the atmospheric aspects are shunted aside in favour of raw aggression, but the mixture plays off for Ov Hollowness and The World Ends quickly comes across as an album that aims to break away from the tried and tested formulas, and that in itself makes this quite the exciting album to explore.

The end result however, while it does have that initial wow factor that'll get a new listener coming back a couple of times, it doesn't have the long-lasting appeal that first impressions would have you assume. The World Ends does not yield any further surprise once you've got the album worked out, if you discount the simply named closing piece Outro, which is done in the ambient style, on account of ambient tracks in atmospheric black metal records being almost the norm by this point.

It's at this time in my experience with the album that the negative aspects start to become apparent. Ov Hollowness may be one of those projects that has its own way of doing things but as with other albums/artists to which this description can be applied the album doesn't ever really offer up anything different from its cold yet hard sound, so distinction between the songs becomes increasingly blurred, again the Outro aside. I've found in my time that black metal is a genre that can be like this quite often, especially when the production is raw, and in these cases it's best to judge an album not by the quality of its individual songs but by how much it can immerse you in its sound and keep you listening until the final track draws to a close. The World End succeeds more on this front, but is still a case of diminishing returns after initially loving the album. Fair is fair, a good album tier rating is still fitting for this one, but it's not the sort of album that can be played and played over again.

74/100

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven: http://metaltube.freeforums.org/ov-hollowness-the-world-ends-t3064.html)
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