Labels: Holy Mountain Records
Review by: Kunal Nandi
The bassist and drummer from Sleep are back! And I think they’re ripped to the tits. There are no allusions to anything “arty” here “” just good old noodly jamming heavy rock. While the minimalist in me approves of the stripped-down, efficient nature of the whole enterprise, the rocker in me demands more. Compared to a band such as Big Business for example, whose similarly sparse equipment setup acts as a springboard for some positively swinging, and most importantly heavy, rock action, when Om do it, it just sounds like it could do with a guitar. The effect of this total lack of dynamics “” check out the consistently mid-range volume and tempo etc. “” can become quite pleasantly trance-like and numbing, but there’s little else in terms of nuance to latch onto. This all seems too deliberate “” the decision to be a duo, the decision to make the songs so fucking long, the decision to avoid studio trickery “” decisions decisions decisions. Were any of these arrived at in an organic manner? It’s a testament to their considerable talent that a dearth of musical invention can be extended over such an expanse. These guys clearly know each other’s style so well, the bass weaving in and out of the measured, grooving drums, so in tune with each other to such an extent that it more and more resembles a giant jam session, with the directionless nature that that entails, often getting desperately uninteresting at certain point before dragging you back from the brink just in time with the main awesome theme. There are also many particularly uninspired vocal lines. What were they going for here? I’m not feeling it much of the time. It’s OK stuff, but given the choice, I’d rather spin one of the many similarly heavy albums of recent times. Or maybe I should do drugs.