Not too long ago, on these very pages, I reviewed a self titled release from France’s own Oruga, designed by the label to be a premonition of what was to come (see original review here: http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/12/oruga-oruga-apathia-records/). As a taster, despite claiming to be an EP it was longer then many full length albums and was some more then satisfactory sludgy doom. Jump forward a few months, and dragging itself into the light of day is the debut LP, ‘Blackened Souls.’ I’ve been lucky enough to score a CD rather then the normal download, and had I not known of their previous work, on seeing an album of this title, printed in black with a vague scene of a haunted woodland, and sporting such titles as ‘Disciples’ and ‘Cursed’, I might well have expected some corpse painted screaming. Fortunately for my tastes, this is not the case.
‘Heretics’ opens the album with a wall of feedback to accompany a Latin mass before the riff kicks in and tortured vocals growl forth to rail against a failed god, the lyrics having a distinctly blackened tone, even if they can actually be discerned and aren’t screamed over a buzz saw guitar. With the hard delivery, maybe the fans of more extreme metal may be willing to give this a try; who knows? After the near nine minutes of the opener, follow on track ‘We, The Darkness’ practically breezes past in a mere six and a half minutes, albeit the breeze in question seeped forth from the darkest necropolis the land of Gaul has to offer, the graveyard miasma mixing with bong fumes in the near hypnotic rhythms.
With an angry snarl like Kirk Windstein after a night of gargling bourbon, or maybe pastis in the case of Oruga, ‘Dead Among The Living’ fills nearly ten minutes of speaker time with riffs that could well owe a debt of influence to the same, the two guitars occasionally meeting with some dirty harmonising as the bass and drums follow in their wake. Proving they’re not just a one trick, one paced act, halfway through this epic things speed up to a pace and aural battery that had me thinking of Conan, before lightening the tone with practically gentle psyche influenced break. Even on this one track, a number that were it, for example, released on a 10” vinyl have bearded collectors fighting over the limited editions, the band show they are willing to explore multiple sounds, rather then just stick to set, comfortable parameters. Whilst only six tracks long, ‘Blackened Souls’ blasts out a near fifty minutes of dark bleak doom, throwing into the mix some melodies and the complex riff work allowed by having two guitars.
France is not a nation that is renowned for this style of music, and it may well be in deference to that fact that the band sings in the international language of metal, English, rather then their native tongue. However, if they are representative of what the nation has to offer, this side of The Channel, and for that matter The Atlantic will have to look to keep up their game. Oruga have definitely crafted a fine slice of doom here, and with both Crowbar and the UK’s own champions the genre Electric Wizard coming forward with new offerings, this is shaping up to be a fine year for those who like their music dirty and down tuned.
(8/10 Spenny)
apathiarecords.bandcamp.com/album/oruga
Leave a Reply