Ophthalamia
"Via Dolorosa"

Never was a title more fitting. Another equally appropriate one could have been "A Shot to the Balls," because the Scandinavian group led by It (mastermind of Abruptum, another entity not exactly devoted to the most fun music on the planet) aims straight for your balls. And it must be said that the target is hit square on.

Never was an intro more deceptive: an acoustic guitar, fairy-tale keyboards, an epic voice, even a melodic solo... how many things will happen in these seventy minutes, one might think, and yet, from the very first notes of the following "Black as Sin, Pale as Death/Autumn Whispers" (a double title typical of Ophthalamia, their myth also rests on such nonsense), it is possible, with hindsight, to grasp the stylistic coordinates of the entire album. An album incredibly varied in solutions but at the same time deadly soporific. How to explain such a contradiction in terms? I will try to convey the idea.

This "Via Dolorosa" certainly constitutes a unique experience in the vast panorama of extreme music, which even the Ophthalamia themselves (in my opinion the most exquisite black group, along with Dissection, that Sweden has given us) will not manage to repeat (having started with the doom of "A Journey in Darkness," my favorite, naturally in the edited version of '97, the one released under the name "A Long Journey," they will in the future veer towards the epic atmospheres of the equally good "Dominion").

Undeniably black metal, the music contained here stands as an absolute negation of the founding pillars of the genre itself (at least from a formal point of view): we will certainly not find speed, icy riffs extended indefinitely, buzzing guitars, and a dirty sound. Only the croaky voice of Legion (throat of the much more famous Marduk, here in great shape), some more intense passages and the misanthropic and desolate atmosphere that hovers from the first to the last instant remind us that it is still old and good black metal. For the rest, any classification attempt is futile.

For example, if the guitar riffing is evidently of Sabbathian matrix, and the tempos are practically never fast, I wouldn't feel comfortable speaking of doom in the strict sense, at least not as it has been in the past for the band itself. This is for two reasons. Firstly, due to the truly crystal-clear and clean production, the sound never becomes really heavy and pachydermic, so much so that it is even possible to hear the bass plucking accompanying the guitar notes, which rather recalls the image of a fast-curling snake or a small insect hopping here and there (images that are not exactly typical of doom!). The impression is that It, who certainly does not shine for synthesis ability, wanted to throw onto this record all the riffs that crossed his mind in '95, without any selection. One could almost argue that there are more notes here than in any Dream Theater album, and that's saying something. The guitarist's hand, far from weaving virtuosities, actually seems to find no rest on the keyboard, making continuous evolutions and dishing out note upon note, mostly melodic passages, but sometimes even some heavier riffs that betray an unconditional love for the guitar patterns of his majesty Tony Iommi. In this, it must be said that if at times It hits the winning chord, other times he fails to appear equally convincing, thus dispersing the effectiveness of certain good ideas.

The other reason why I don't feel like saying that we are facing a doom album is the work done behind the skins by Winter (who from the grin seems to me to be the drummer of Edge of Sanity in disguise, but I wouldn't bet on it), which is not second, in terms of variety and inconclusiveness, to the guitar strumming of his boss. Always precise and crackling, in fact, he launches into daring acrobatics in pursuit of the polyhedral guitarist’s evolutions, often privileging odd tempos, at times even bordering on parts closer to the jazz world, without ever sounding really progressive and experimental, as can, for example, a Sean Reinart or a Richard Christy in an extreme context. If I may make a bold association, the style of the protagonist of Gunter Grass's "The Tin Drum" comes to mind.

The impression is never one of chaos or rarefaction, rather the album seems to be animated by a clockwork mechanism, where guitar, bass, and drums don't miss a beat, they play in unison, following precise tracks, making sudden about-faces and mood changes (melancholic interludes, epic veers, oppressive moments), without however losing the sense of structure, since despite the different adventures, the songs manage to maintain a verse-chorus scheme.

What emerges is something that proves to be equally verbose and fascinating. Verbose because we will hardly encounter brilliant passages that will draw our attention or catchy melodies capable of shaking us. Rather, we will feel that the continuous variations will lead us nowhere, nor will they guide us to compelling crescendos or peaks of particular intensity. We will therefore wonder what the point of this flat proceeding is, which in the long run can only appear sterile and somewhat self-serving to us, if not to hurl us into Morpheus's arms... how many naps I have taken... yet every time the desire to return to this work is rekindled, to try to understand its reason for being, but also because it is still difficult to resist the estranging power of these truly unprecedented atmospheres, the "strange sadness" that emanates from this solitary little guitar, the visions and landscapes that arise from listening, the sense of spiritual journey that the work exudes, which in fact constitutes an excursus on the sense of existence in this world (the Via Dolorosa) through the succession of seasons, which symbolize the phases that mark the arc of life, its blooming and wilting. A journey that fascinates, that can instill anguish despite being essentially bright and varied music (take this statement with caution), which leads back to a fantastic and fairy-tale world, somewhat as the colorful and dreamy cover suggests, truly unusual for a band devoted to black.

If indeed a first listening cannot but prove traumatic, subsequent ones (always and still traumatic) may reveal new details each time, demonstrating that beneath the daunting exterior lies a real depth, a search for not-at-all-trivial and clichéd sounds and atmospheres (a mission that has always animated this truly unique and essential band for the entire scene). And so, in this maze of sad melodies, of passages full of epic pathos, of useless paranoid twists, it is possible to glimpse brief acoustic parentheses (courtesy of the fundamental Night, also on bass), dark narrations, unsettling whispers, moments of vocal theatricality, brief outbursts, small precious details that must be unearthed in these apparently inconclusive compositions, which stretch to even ten minutes in length.

The sad piano notes of the concluding "Message to Those After Me/Death Embrace Me (part II)" will be a relief for our ears and brain, because the journey was exhausting, and regardless of the listens we want to dedicate to this work, I do not think one can reach a full understanding of it, given the autism that inspires its conception and development. After all, if I think of all the time I wasted on this album, it makes me think of how little I've hooked up in my life.

Finally worth mentioning is the admirable cover of "Deathcrush" by the seminal Mayhem, placed at the end as a bonus track, directly linking to the version contained in "Live in Leipzig," in fact opening with that "only death is real" that Dead used to present the piece and open the concert. (The album, for the record, is dedicated to the infamous Inner Circle and at the same time wishes to be a "BIG fuck off" to the "cunt krishna").

P.S. careful Count, It will not forgive you...