Oz Records, the home base of one of the veteran Death/Brutal acts active today - Cenotaph, and the home of many other Brutal and unique bands whose visits to the record stores are relatively rare, (Under Moonlight Sadness, Agony Lords, Shub Niggurath, Buried Dreams, The Chasm, Dies Irae), is an excellent label for he whom is seeking after musical material a little out of the ordinary, in the fixated metal underground. Similar to the great HBO TV serious - OZ, so is this cool Mexican label, walks on roads less traveled, and deviates from what is known, familiar and acceptable. Talking about OZ (The TV serious), Oz (The record label) has founded a subsidiary called ... Well can you guess? Emerald City Records, yeh, that's right! Nice, Ha? When, finally I had received the long awaited promo, after nagging them and waiting for at least six months, the expectation - how shall I put it? - Was quite worthwhile. Now, that is the greatest challenge, and the challenge is actually what shall I write about this album? This is due to the fact I don't really know what to write; I don't know whether to hate or to love what I'm hearing. What I have gotten, was the new album of a Mexican band, which bares the name of a very ancient Jewish traditional holiday worshiping object of some kind (also a figure in H. P. Lovecraft's Necronomicon), a cover painting which can suite most Brutal Metal bands, album title with no certain meaning, and the music - Non definable. Some sort of a strange combination between Dark and Death metal, spiced up with church organs, instrumental parts (some are almost classical ones, very reminiscent of Johan Sebastian Bach's masterpieces...) and some very Gothic, somber and emotional singing. The music is far from being heavy, and to be precise, the heaviest tool in the music is the singer's voice, which has a very unique quality to it. It lacks a specific character and cannot be labeled whatsoever. The album itself is not too catchy. That's not because it being murderous sort of music, but mostly for the fact the musical ideas tend not to develop in any direction and never getting towards any climax apparent (This is exactly what I was thinking about Opeth's "orchid", and see where these guys are today...). The other thing preventing it being a catchy album (and it's not a bad thing - Not being catchy...), is because the song structure is somewhat weird. No basic structure of verse, chorus, verse and so on. The songs tend to flow, evenly, until they end. The most outstanding thing about this album is it's being highly emotional, loaded with musical and vocal feelings, and in some cases (especially when the singer cries his throat out, cries of grief) it reminded me a lot the very sentimental vocals of peers such as Burzum or Bethlehem. I have got this strong feeling that the more I will be listening to this album, the more I will learn to appreciate it. Real good things are those which penetrate slowly into one's soul and leave a strong impression for a long time, rather than the catchy "hits" that burn quickly in a "hit and run" manner. Quality needs time to be absorbed into one's self. Or as was written on the cover of the mighty Sentenced masterpiece "AMOK": "Love it or hate it!". Success to this young and promising, almost anonymous band!!!

© 2000 c. drishner