The San Francisco Bay Area has always been a hot spot for Metal from the early 80’s Thrash scene to today. Dawn of Ouroboros proudly carry on the tradition of bringing fresh and exciting new exteme music to the masses with their debut release, “The Art of Morphology.”
This album is somewhat difficult to review but I do not mean that in any bad way whatsoever. In fact it is quite the opposite as this is an extemely great listen. Let’s start off by taking everything you know about Black Metal and toss it aside. Yes, I know that is a cliche thing to say but that principle completely applies here. From the gentle opening chords of “Revivied Spirits,” the album sets an deep atmospheric tone then hits hard into blast beats, harsh vocals and buzzsaw guitars for the second half of the song. The next song, “Pinnacle Induced Vertigo” also starts in the same kind of matter but this track has a more melodic feel. The clean vocals are really effective here as well. Vocalist Chelsea Murphy has some incredible range and talent. Normally I hate when bands mix vocal styles with a passion but somehow it the folks in Dawn pull it off.
“Gateway to Tenebrosity” is a short piano instrumental that leads perfectly into “Lunar Cathexis.” Here Murphy blends vocals styles again, going from sweet to demonic on a more Black Metal sounding track. This is the theme throughout the entire album and what leads into it’s difficulty to review. Dawn of Ouroboros are constantly changing their sound and style. The change, however, is never jarring and flows well with the rest of the song. This is a highly recommneded listen as it takes all of your preconceived notions and flips them on their head. I am sure after a few more listens, I will pick up on more subtleties and complexities.
I’ll just close this by saying, “Go forth and listen now!”
And now for something completely different.