OVO
Cor Cordium

THE REVIEW

I don't understand, since I discovered them (the beautiful "miastenia", their third album), what it is about ovo that I like so much and makes me love them so endlessly; there's no melody, or at least not in the classical sense of the term, there's no riff that can be called such, there's a lot of noise, but not as normally intended, rather a rowdy, distorted, destructive one that makes your ears bleed; there's a voice (that of the guitarist singer Stefaniuccia Pedretti, partner both in the group and in life with the other half of the project, Bruno Dorella, someone who in terms of sound-auditory-strangebuttrue-experimentalism never misses a beat, also engaged in two other beautiful projects like Ronin and Bachi da Pietra, and others, though none come to mind right now), but it's loud, ungraceful, almost black at times, sing-song in others, sighing, anti-melodious, erratic, out of tune, annoying; there's a drum played standing up, without a bass drum, just a few cymbals, timpani, snare, and a lot of psychedelic mantra, and a lot of rhythmic minimalism; there's the heaviness of doom, noise, avant-garde rock, the distortion of sludge, there's psychedelia, there's hyper-distorted metal reminiscent of certain black metal segments, there are blood-curdling horror movie lullabies, obsessive tribal rhythms, grind splashes, and a lot, really lots of unhealthy angst!

Yes, I would consider them annoying, excessively annoying, and that's why I don't understand why I love them so much. There's that psychoanalysis-of-the-living-dead atmosphere that drives me crazy, yes, the atmosphere, because not everyone can create stuff so outside the clichés that it can't even be called music, and spice it with so much dark, noir atmosphere at times, dark in others, almost gothic in some (don't get the wrong idea); no, not everyone can do it, and Pedretti and the Good genius Dorella succeed at it, they manage to make us feel the blood flowing from these ten sonic mutilations they can tint our days with sheer terrifying drama, disgust that caresses and entangles in its cursed coils.

"Cor cordium" is the first album to be released under the aegis of the well-attentive "supernatural cat", a homegrown label very alert to sonic dysfunctions like these guys, or morkobot, or yet ufo mammut (of which the label owners are part, as well as the creators of all the CD covers that come out for them, the malleus studio); the formula compared to the past becomes much heavier and more horrific, partially extreme, more tribal, more psychedelically disturbing; needless to say how inappropriate it is to analyze any given track compared to others: the journey is one, without any interruptions, from the beginning to the end, without stops!

Immerse yourself in this bath of discomfort, you will come out changed, improved, emptied of that existential angst that grips our lives every day.

I would almost dare to say therapeutic…