{"id":14641,"date":"2013-09-16T00:00:43","date_gmt":"2013-09-16T00:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=14641"},"modified":"2013-10-16T10:59:52","modified_gmt":"2013-10-16T10:59:52","slug":"album-review-otargos-apex-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-otargos-apex-terror\/","title":{"rendered":"OTARGOS – Apex Terror (2013) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

OTARGOS
Apex Terror<\/strong><\/span>
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\nListenable (2013)<\/span>
Rating: 6\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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As soon as the drums of J.H. Thyr kicks in you know you\u2019re in for a black metal treat with Apex Terror<\/em>, the fifth full-length opus from French combo Otargos. For me this nine-track release is about all those punchy drums; forget the vocals of U.W. Dagoth, forget the white hot guitar sound \u2013 just focus on those skins, great stuff indeed.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say of course that any other instrument on this opus is inferior, but J.H. Thyr really gives the album another dimension as he pounds and rattles his way through opening title track. Migraines have never been so pleasing! <\/p>\n

Otargos \u2013 an interesting moniker of an interesting band \u2013 are the sort of anti-religious lunatics you\u2019d want on your side in any war, seething vocally and angst-ridden in those steely, raging guitars. I\u2019m still more of the opinion that the instruments are more interesting individually than as of being a unit. After all, in today\u2019s climate it\u2019s difficult to be innovative, especially in the blackened death \/ thrash scene.<\/p>\n

But like so many bands of this ilk, Otargos benefit from their experimental slower passages, such as on the emissions of \u2018Fleshless-Deathless\u2019 and the initial stirring of \u2018Aftermath Hyperion\u2019. The band provides an ominous chug throughout, until those discoloured passages seep in with the grey guitars. The melodies are also of intrigue, and at times the soloing in \u2018Fleshless-Deathless\u2019 hints at a classic metal approach. While with \u2018For Terra\u2019 the outfit opt for a thrashier structure.<\/p>\n

The whole Otargos back catalogue should be one of interest to fans of blackened thrash and doomier black metal, but with so much of this hate-filled, icy and often formulaic extreme metal, it\u2019s difficult to differentiate some of these bands from another. For instance, the grating guitars of \u2018Fallout\u2019 means the track whizzes by as a grey haze, and the same could be said for \u2018Drone\u2019 despite its avante-garde leaning.<\/p>\n

The aforementioned \u2018Aftermath Hyperion\u2019 pretty much sums up the sound of Otargos; one which shows potential but due to those speedy segments the outfit seem to drift along aimlessly as just another thrashing black metal band. It\u2019s a shame, because when the slower portions are injected Apex Terror<\/em> is quite a dense-sounding and forbidding record. However, it always feels as if I\u2019m waiting for something spectacular to happen, but it never does.<\/p>\n

Again, individually these guys are top-notch, but with a batch of albums down the line I don\u2019t see these Frenchmen deviating from their sound which could be their overall downfall. <\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTARGOSApex Terror Listenable (2013)Rating: 6\/10 As soon as the drums of J.H. Thyr kicks in you know you\u2019re in for a black metal treat with Apex Terror, the fifth full-length opus from French combo Otargos. For me this nine-track release is about all those punchy drums; forget the vocals of U.W. Dagoth, forget the white […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,778],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-otargos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14641"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14644,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14641\/revisions\/14644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}