The only Slovakian music I knew about until now was by Abbey ov Thelema, and that’s extreme. If this monster from ONO, the band of a gentleman who operates under the name of Twisted, is anything to go by, this isn’t a country which caters for the lighter end of the market.
“Reconstruction and Synthesis” lives up to its industrial-sounding title. You’ll not find a song here, just a succession of distant and menacing sounds. ONO’s world is drawn out and obscure. Sometimes there’s a suggestion of violence, as there is in the generally haunting “A Farewell to Conscious”, but mainly what is depicted are the grey, shadowy and death-like landscapes of earlier Blut aus Nord with whistling sirens and noises you can’t really make out. The indistinct sounds are no doubt deliberate and designed no doubt to reflect industrial obscurity and greyness. It’s impenetrably dark and doomy with a series of passages in which images are created. No story, no song, no convention. I thought I’d experienced the world of the title track when it stopped but it just starts off again as if the previous night has ended and it’s now time for the next one.
It’s not all absolute gloom and doom, although it cannot be said that this atmospheric and experimental trip is ever a happy one. That title track has its moments of technical progressiveness, and whilst “At Sixes and Sevens” spreads a mood of ghastliness before descending into sombre territory, “Reformation/Absorption” starts with an epic Viking metal feel. It plunges into grey and bleak ambience. “Lucid Trasmutation” meanwhile presents a cosmic and thundery night.
“Reconstruction and Synthesis” is a difficult album to get into, not least because there’s no apparent shape or pattern, and although it’s all very ambient and dark, it never lingers because no passage seems to lead into the next. But I don’t suppose Twisted cares about that, and fair play to him if he doesn’t.
(6.5/10 Andrew Doherty)
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