OoE offers ambitious doomy death. Vocals are a deep almost raspy growl with semi-operatic female vocals showing up here and there. Drums are handle by a machine which is adequately programmed, and keys are used widely but not in a Dimmu Borgir sense. I say "ambitious" because they've tried something fairly original, with atypical riffing ideas, and they almost pull it off. The music is pretty interesting, but rarely evoked any emotional reactions from me. Production is clean and clear, except a bit thin on the guitars. They do a horrible version of Sabbath's "Paranoia". The semi-operatic female vocals are used as the lead (cracking and out of tune often), then the Oppressor-like male vocals come in during the chorus and it sounds kind of funny. To top it off, the vocals are mixed too high for this one song, so they're that much more annoying. Truthfully, I can only get into a little bit of Greek metal (Necromantia, Rotting Christ, maybe a couple others here and there), but overall the minimalist approach to production for melodic ideas that could use a bit more fleshing out usually turns me off. So, if you dig Greek metal, this may be up your alley.

© 2000 j. mcintyre