Bit of a tall order this: An Orthodox double CD of odds n sods…er….’rareties, covers and demos’ when I only just made their acquaintance with Baal. Still, Baal was a fine piece of doomed, sludgy work so I hoped this might offer a little more insight into their roots and workings.
Well it has probably just confused me more but mostly in a good way, if you see what I mean. The first two tracks are from a 2010 EP. First track Matse Avatar is Hawkwind through a sludge doom filter, rocking that spaced out discordant meandering some of the longer, turned inward escapades Hawkwind have dipped into. YHVH, meanwhile, is more like the Orthodox I know; full of monolithic, ponderous riffing and stoner touches to the otherwise dense and slightly eccentric but still atmospheric music. Then we have the cover of Venom’s Genocide, which proves yet again that before you can turn to doom, you have to know how to handle speed to learn control and they run in a nicely punked up version. We then experience a neat if fairly faithful cover of the eponymous Black Sabbath song with some nice vocals, before the minimalist sun gazing song Heritage creeps in. This features some nicely judged martial drumming and such a downbeat atmosphere you wonder if they’ll make it to the end of the eighteen minute song.
As you’d expect from an album like this it is a bit all over the place so don’t expect any consistent thread or atmosphere, but taken on their own merits there are some fascinating songs here and when you have stuff like Heritage that could make an EP all by itself (and was on the 2008 Four Burials split) it does offer good value for your dosh.
The remainder of this CD appears to be unreleased; Apoc 17.5, Different Envelopes and Japan Rush (extended soundscape, discordant purposeless noise and a longer version of the same respectively, so I can see why…)
CD two is demo material from 2005, released in extremely limited cassette format in 2012. Three tracks spanning a whopping 55 minutes and all recordings of subsequently available songs. Geryon’s Throne and El Lamento Del Cabron from their 2006 Gran Poder debut and Asencion which turned up on their 2009 Sentencia full length and is mostly a curious but intriguing number consisting of piano, soft drum feathering and their distinctive vibrato vocals. A little rough production-wise in a couple of places but nothing really too noticeable and showcasing everything from drone, noise and jazz to that kind of Highgate style blackened chaotic sludge.
So there you have it. Pretty much what you’d expect from something like this: Some good, some odd, some pointless. It’s the old “one for existing fans/completists” as it certainly isn’t any way to introduce yourself to what is an excellent and often unusual doom/sludge band with a sprinkling of black psychedelic. So new fans, buy Baal and work backwards.
Unless you’re one of the aforementioned completists, that means a solid but unremarkable…
(6/10 Gizmo)
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