{"id":94042,"date":"2022-06-20T00:00:54","date_gmt":"2022-06-19T23:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=94042"},"modified":"2022-06-24T17:02:02","modified_gmt":"2022-06-24T16:02:02","slug":"album-review-odd-eyed-swords-and-serpents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-odd-eyed-swords-and-serpents\/","title":{"rendered":"ODD EYED – Swords And Serpents (2022) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

ODD EYED
Swords And Serpents<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nSelf-released (2022)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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I didn\u2019t know what to expect with this one, Odd Eyed being a Russian act with a debut album that looks a bit black \/ thrash, yet sounds crushing as a death \/ doom opus.<\/p>\n

Swords And Serpents<\/em> is the work of one mysterious man named Sigurd The Odd-Eyed, who has crafted an exceptional heavy weight record boasting nine tracks based upon old Russian songs of lore circa the 18th and 19th centuries.<\/p>\n

That sense of the epic shines through as each track flows like black, slick rivers of doom mixed with gloomy, mid-80s traditional metal. Sigurd\u2019s vocals, however, are very much centred in the death \/ doom realm, being deep, chesty grunts that translate as poetic transcriptions to accompany those deep, pallid chugs.<\/p>\n

Opening track \u2018The Son Of The Serpent\u2019 pretty much sums up what you\u2019re getting here. The guitar tone is killer, which at times harkens back to a Hellhammer sort of buzz yet with those weird, doomy aesthetics.<\/p>\n

\u2018Too Heavy For The Earth\u2019 morbidly unravels at crushingly slow pace. It\u2019s got the vibe of some long forgotten mid-to-late 80s European doom metal gem you accidentally stumbled across, evoking images of stark, naked trees grasping at the walls of a crumbling, grey castle caressed by storm clouds to the soundtrack of crows, all the while a distant army trudges through the misty mire.<\/p>\n

This is extremely atmospheric stuff. Just listen to the lo-fi nuances of \u2018The Sword Of Svyatogor\u2019, an immense cascading rumble providing a brisk dynamic amid the thick showers of ash. Meanwhile, \u2018The River Of Blood\u2019 nods with a sinister, sneaking suspenseful aspect, and \u2018Stone Coffin\u2019 lumbers in true traditional doom fashion with Sigurd expressing via mighty coughing commands to his own catchy yet melancholic wisps of gloom.<\/p>\n

\u2018Serpenticide\u2019 provides an unexpected break from the doom, racing reasonably fast as a death \/ thrash composition of hammering percussion and speeding axe work. And yet it still remains stark and morose.<\/p>\n

Search anywhere within this vast landscape of ancient seething and you\u2019ll find a myriad of sounds all encased within a doomy framework. The dissonant and eerie closer \u2018Drevnij i Tyomnyj\u2019 has a black metal starkness, while \u2018Ancient And Blind\u2019 trickles like some fireside folktale. It is encompassing stuff, a real journey through epic tales within vast, bleak lands rich in history.<\/p>\n

Sigurd should be proud of what he\u2019s achieved here \u2013 his ancestors most certainly would be.<\/p>\n

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

ODD EYEDSwords And Serpents Self-released (2022)Rating: 8\/10 I didn\u2019t know what to expect with this one, Odd Eyed being a Russian act with a debut album that looks a bit black \/ thrash, yet sounds crushing as a death \/ doom opus. Swords And Serpents is the work of one mysterious man named Sigurd The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,4851],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-odd-eyed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94042","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=94042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94043,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94042\/revisions\/94043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}