Friday, May 6, 2016

Ofghost - Of Sound Mind (2016)

Finland's Ofghost continue to make their atmospheric style of black and death metal on this third full-length album. Fans of the band shouldn't expect much to veer from that formula, even though the recording is a little lo-fi and sometimes it's a bit hard to discern the background synths over the programmed drums. It considers itself “riff-driven” and I can certainly hear that here in the mix. There seems to be quite a bit of riff progression, and things almost get to a level that can come off as quite technical in retrospect. Even though the record does feature synth atmospheres, Ofghost certainly stick to more extreme metal territories, particularly that of black metal, which I've noticed a bit more than anything else (apart from doom passages.) The record is performed completely in the band's native Finnish, but that shouldn't deter you from listening to it. These Finns do embrace electronics from time to time, so if you absolutely cannot have even a hint of an electronic beat in your black metal, then Ofghost may not be for you. Oddly enough, the band also employs the use of unexpected clean vocal chants, which sometimes are not even accompanied by any sort of musical backing at all. It's bizarre, but different and most notably Finnish. With a very successful DIY effort put forth here, I think that adventurous fans of extreme metal will quite enjoy this disc. You've just got to be ready for it, because like most Finnish experimentalism, it creeps up on you and can see one song changing quickly to another. I'm quite pleased that they reached out to me with this release and the end result is a very solid and satisfying effort. Three discs under their belt, and plenty of promise here. I'd certainly like to hear what the future will entail for these gentlemen.

(7 Tracks, 26:00)

7/10

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