Old Man Gloom
Seminar III: Zozobra

Enter a room, turn on the stereo, insert the CD, and prepare to embark on a nightmare.

From the moment you press "Play," the next 27 minutes and 18 seconds will be decidedly challenging.

Ready, set, go, a sound similar to a passing train accompanies you with strange vibrations toward a destination entirely new to you.

From nowhere it appears, there it is... a slow and melodic guitar riff, it's very faint but it's a guitar, it starts guiding you on this journey.

Interferences... while it continues to make you jump.

2001 Odyssey in agony, this could be the subtitle of this "Seminar III - Zozobra" by Old Man Gloom, a real torment of emotions and knowledge so far considered fundamental for human survival.

There's absolutely nothing for the first 6 minutes except the guitar leading the listener to a beyond that still has no concrete form.

It starts, and suddenly a metallic voice appears that seems to almost call us to an unreal reality. Nightmares of pseudo androids, this is our scenario.

Aaron Turner's (Isis) brilliant Old Man Gloom reaches the seed of the conception of music. Everything is superfluous and not essential. Music itself seems not to be anymore, you ascend and embark on a sick journey, this is the concept to keep well in mind.

The tracks on this record cannot be analyzed because this record is a unique track, this record is a unique thing, this record is a unique nightmare.

And there it is, exploding this Zozobra at its first change after almost 8 minutes, the bass, drums, and voice explode simultaneously while the guitar still traces the initial riff in a kind of post-atomic dream.

Pain, despair, anger, annoyance, a sense of suffocation, that's what this record tells us, and that's where Old Man Gloom wants to lead us... into their world!

Break and off we go, everything suddenly changes, the rhythm becomes much tighter, everything takes on much more canonical features, with a huge, inflated drum in the best Sludge/Stoner/Doom style. These gentlemen make us understand what heaviness related to music is.

Distort and destroy. Destroy and distort, this is what Zozobra enacts, everything distorts, the guitars, the voice, the drums... everything! The air around distorts... if you have a good stereo system, everything will become very, very unpleasant for your neighbors and for you, if you happen to have heart problems.

 Are you claustrophobic? In that case, stay absolutely away from this record, wherever you listen to it, it will take you inside a tiny black room without windows, where only the distorted air and the desire to go crazy will be your companions.

 This is a sick album, hormonally conceived badly, it doesn't have a normal beginning, nor a normal development, nor even a normal end.

Your 27 minutes and 18 seconds are about to end, and a crescendo of dark feedback, and guitar riffs as heavy as boulders guide you towards the end of the tunnel, but this time there's no light waiting for you, only darkness, so much intense darkness.

Rustles, Feedback, Rustles, Feedback, Rustles, Feedback, Rustles...

End.

Very good album, very high rating!

Good luck.