I may as well mention now, that the Grind sub-genre is something I have never seen as
appealing. I like a few bands, but it's always been a pain to have to browse through
all the mediocre, dull bands that plague Grind. Anyway, when this came in the post, I
approached it with an open mind. After all, the album booklet looks awesome (I'll talk
about that later), so maybe the album would sound awesome.
Anyway, what we have here is your typical grind set-up. Programmed drums, low growls,
(generally) fast riffing, all provided in short, less than a minute, blasts. Usually
these are warning signs to a bad album for me, but despite this, Occlused In Ottusity is
actually quite a good listen. The music ranges from mid-range to fucking fast, and is
divided up with samples from old Mafia/Italian movies, throughout the 32 tracks present
here (within 25 minutes). One thing I was pleased about when first listening to this is
the drums. They're nothing special (though adequate at least) but the sound is actually
fairly good and convincing, especially when compared to other grind bands that get some
clueless person to poorly program the drums.
Highlights? Well, seeing as the songs are so short, they seem to blend into one another
(fairly smoothly I must add), but Caimme would be my choice, as during it's one minute
duration it's actually quite memorable. Oh, and the album booklet. The guitarist, Marco,
happens to also be a comic artist for Marvel (or so I've read, I'm not totally sure) and
the booklet features a well-drawn comic (hey, it beats another booklet filled with pictures
of guts). No lyrics are included mind, apparently there are none.
If you're not into Grind, then I doubt this will move you at all. But if you are, you can
do no harm in checking these guys out, as Occlused In Ottusity would be a welcome addition
to any Grind fans collection.
Darren Morrison
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