2nd album 08 (E.M.P.)

CONTENTS

By sage, heathen Harvest webzine, april 2009

OSIRION : " HAR SABBAT "

Osirion is a project from Meythet, France, a small town on the Eastern border of France in the Alps (Haute-Savoie). While typically most would assume that, purely because of location, Osirion are a grim and frostbitten black metal project, they actually reign more into the melodic black metal category. While they are nowhere near the symphonic genre of most bands in this genre, they are certainly not overly thrashy nor raw. They have a pretty nice balance, with a hint of groove in their rhythm section. The melodic rhythmic backbone of Iron Maiden meets “From the Most Devastated Lands”-style Bekhira, which is fitting as they also reign from France. Osirion also has a slight hint of industrial black metal in their drum machine loops, very machine like and, at times, slightly punky.

Though formed in 2001, the band has a number of releases already available, including their debut full-length on 'D.U.K.E.' records, Har Sabbat from 2005. In addition to this, the band has released some fairly underground splits with Vorkuta, The Black Death, and even the infamous Zarach'ball'tharagh whom these days seems to have scarred the face of every underground black metal project in existence in a split. At least one of the members is also involved in the industrial black metal project Pavillion Rouge, which may explain their excellent work on the programming side of Reconquista. This is their first work with the renowned French black metal label Eisigermond Productions, and they're standing strong in the face of other great French labels like Aura Mystique and Drakkar Productions.

The industrial overtone is perhaps what makes this release special, as we rarely hear it with such melodic compositions. Osirion's Reconquista is full of life, its a rather warm sensation as opposed to the cold dark appeal most bands of this caliber are known for. The typical subject matters are there but the song-writing is different, it holds a groove in addition to the hard blasts and tremlo picking. The music gets up to the point of becoming epic but never really quite crosses the line. There are a lot of moments where you'll find yourself waiting for a moment to arrive, anticipating it, but it will never come. That strong arrival when your firsts clench and you can't help but windmill, that is the moment that is missing on Reconquista. Not to take away from the band, the music is excellent on this release, it just unfortunately never crosses the line to bring out passion in the listener. Lyrically, it seems the band is strongly focused on Lucifer and anti-christian themes. Most lyrics are in French so I can only, regretfully, rely on what English there is in the booklet, but with a Sodom cover in addition to what can be understood by an English speaking person, its pretty safe to assume what Osirion are all about. A fine release from a rather young project, but it still needs maturing a bit. Check it out if this is what you're all about!


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