'Oubliette Ontology'
(Violent Journey records)
MARK: 76/100
What counts is that I am glad that a band like this has been able to awaken old tunes and memories from the past without nostalgy nor trivialities. I wanna reveal you a secret: when I opened the promo kit by the Finnish label, the first CD I immediately wished to write a review about was this and my sixth sense was fucking right!
Although I expected something influenced by Pungent Stench, I was well-impressed anyway when the second bullet was shot after the intro "The Beginning", announcing a story of torture, madness and gruesome cruelty, stressed out by the superb pictures additioned to the artwork: "Two Sides of A Spiteful Mind" winds through references to early Entombed, Grave, etc., and the Finn school in the vein of Mindrot and the likes, thanks to odd deviations, stop 'n' goes and twisted bass breaks.
"Wound Opening Pt. 1" shows a choice by the singer to use less words and distribute them with more pauses to increase the brutal impact, as well as "Wound Opening Pt. 2", which is yet more Death and Roll in more than a couple of riffs; unfortunately just one of these riffs is played too slowly, ruining the effect of the song. To be noted that there also 4 words in Finnish that I wish someone could translate for me, and most of all that the work on the drums by Tuukka Franck is clearly adorable as well as the drum sounds he chose for the drums. He's been replaced after the recording and I don't know kny, but it might be that the other Pyuria members needed somebody more clever with modern blastbeats Tuukka wasn't able to reproduce, but this just a hypothesis.
With "Blind Victim" the Finns from Turku draw out the ass in their sleeves, adding some unexpected, yet very suitable clean vocals in the vein of Soil, and a cool axe solo. "Terror Well" is probably the most disruptive track in this half an hour, topped by a delicious acceleration in the final part; some clean vocals are used here, too, but this time they are first more suffering, and soon after alternated to growls, so as to get declamatory and obsessive in the last seconds.
Another song destined to become a hymn to headbanging and mad pogo is "Emperor of Bloodshed", dissonant in the way of Meshuggah and the latest Napalm Death, emphasizing much more care and elaboration by the genial guitarist this time.
Thumbs up for a work that intentionally sounds so much pleasantly dated and contains classic Death lyrics, that it seems recorded before 1995 and I'm convinced many could be deceived and think the same of they didn't read the recording year was 2008.
On one hand I have to observe that 5 days in a studio are not many, but the four musicians all look not too young, so it is legit to expect a more professional release next time; on the other hand, after two careful listening sessions, I can say at last their second album has passed my hard test. Nevertheless there are ample margins of improvement as for the recording and the lyrical side (full of funny mistakes that wouldn't give a mothertongue speaker a happy impression), so the turning point for a fully successful third record could be more concentration and more precision; after all, we all know the devil is in the details...
MARKUS GANZHERRLICH - 2nd October 2008
Line-up on this
record:
Tuukka Franck - d.
Oskari Mäki- g.
Juuso Heikkinen - b.
Eero Haula- v.
Contacts:
Turku - Finland
Official
sites: http://www.pyuria.com/
http://www.myspace.com/thepyuria
Demo-/Disco-graphy:
Pyuria (demo - 1997)
Suprapubic Pain (demo - 1998)
Baroquean Menuets for Oesophagus (EP - 1999)
Sublime Metrics Reallocation (EP - 2003)
Calliphora Vomitoria Introitus (CD - 2004)
Oubliette Ontology (CD - 2007)
