Even in the world of extreme music it is hard to be innovative. With so many musicians across so many decades how can anyone hope to produce something truly unique? One could point to Stallagg Gulagh and their alleged use (abuse?) of the mentally unwell in their projects or even the recent works of CHRISWVRKS with his anti-music collages. However, are they not just the Emperors new playlist? A slight shift in the works created by those that have come before with an added tweak to buck other trends? In 2020 it is hard to truly offer something that doesn’t fit, at least partially into another box.
That is not to say Ottone Pesante have done this. I am sure there are readers that will shout from the rooftops that they have heard what this Italian trio offer in some form elsewhere. I, however have not and I have found DoomooD intriguing.
The band comprise of Francesco Bucci – Trombone, Tuba, Paolo Raineri – Trumpet, Flugelhorn and
Beppe Mondini – Drums. Yup that is right – no guitars or bass. At points that is hard to believe as the low end of, I am guessing the tuba, creates some chest crushing basslines and the other brass drops “riffs”(?) that are certainly heavy as anything that comes out of HM-2 pedals. Is this true Heavy Metal
I say that Ottone Pesante are new to me but they are not a new band. This is their fourth full length release in 5 years. I have had a quick listen to 2018’s Apocalips which I will be exploring further (the brass grindcore of Bleeding Moon is a sound to behold), and what becomes apparent is that with this album the music has taken on a much more sombre and dark edge. The title says it all. In the bands description on their website they state that DoomooD is a work of palindrone with each piece being reflected in the next and there being a sublime sense of wholesomeness in the sounds. Each track reflects itself whilst also reflecting back both its predecessor and the piece that follows it.
The denseness of the brass is quite remarkable conjuring up furious heaviosity one moment and then the most delicate of fragile melodies the next. Mondini on drums is as adept with a grinding crushing blastbeat as he is with loose wrist jazz paradiddles.
Now what may surprise some of you is that Ottone Pesante are not wholly an instrumental act. They like to bring in guests to add vocals. In the past this has included Cattle Decap’s Travis Ryan as on 2018’s “The Fifth Trumpet” – check out the odd but compelling video on youtube.
On DoomooD Sara from Italian Doom band Messa is utilised wonderfully on the single “Tentacles”. This is the third track on the album but can easily be seen as the third movement started by The Chasm and then Distress which precede it. Tentacles opens with a solemn fanfare – imagine a funeral doom version of the Reveille. This becomes a plodding refrain which makes me think of giant creatures like the Ents in Tolkien slowly entering a battle field. Sara’s vocals are eerily layered on adding a psyche doom element to the track and bizarrely an urgency that goes against the pacing of the music. The overall feel is of a menacing sorceress conjuring something dark and betentacled to rise up and engulf its foes. The brass instruments intertwine like the parts of octopi and I find it hard to note where one ends and the next begins. The cinematic feel continues into “Coiling of the Tubas” which sees what I have always seen as a bloated, pompous looking instrument reborn as a writhing, reptilian, deadly reticule beast.
Which made “Serpentine Serpentone” sound all the more jolly when it began with a jaunty refrain. How wrong I was! This time Silvio Sassi of – an Italian Doom/Sludge band that I need to check out – offers his extreme rasp and chaos ensues. Blastbeats, manic jazz riffs and filthy atmospheres abound in this sub 3-minute cacophony. It’s like being hit by a spit filled tornado of air by the ensemble!
A seventeen second reprieve of what sounds like backmasked brass is the reward in “Ocean on an Echo” before the sadness of “Grave” kicks in. The music creeps and builds and my mind is filled of the grainy characters in Lon Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera staggering terrified with their arms above their heads to ward off the deadly ropes of the masked fiend. It builds and builds like a tracking shot on a ticking bomb before accelerating into something almost comical which then transforms into mania before settling into something resembling post black metal. What a trip!
“Strombacea” is regal and cinematic yet still dark and foreboding. I am unsure of the vocalist here, it could be SIlvio once more but the mix of sludge / Black Metal vocals is both full of power and yet understated at the same time. The brass still stands as the main protagonist here and I am brought to mind a magician who has lost control of his spells like a more hirsute and grimy Fantasia.
“Endless Spiral” is a descent/ascent that feels like it was designed by Escher. The tuba is taking us further down whilst a much higher pitched instrument that is reminiscent of a flute, I am guessing a flugelhorn seems to send the ears shooting back up towards the ceiling. But the journey must end. “End will come when will Ring the Black Bells” is the bizarrely titled finale – it sounds like a loop and ebbs and fades until it is just a constant throb in the distance and I sit transfixed waiting for a grand return that never comes. This is the echoes of the story as the air is finally depleted in the lungs of the artists.
If I wanted to be trite I would say “Ska Punk stole the brass from rock and roll and Ottone Pesante have wrenched it back”.
DoomooD could possibly be the most interesting thing I have heard so far this year. Its scape, scope and orchestration is mesmerising and visceral and I urge everyone with ears to check out this fantastic album.
(9/10 Matt Mason)
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