Liste des groupes Black Avantgardiste Circle Of Ouroborus The Lost Entrance of the Just

Carrying on with their new found ambient layered sound, The Lost Entrance of the Just shows significant improvements over the mediocre Eleven Fingers, dropping much of the monotony that defined said album and creating a more dreamy, evocative atmosphere. With this change in song writing aesthetics the band has had to sacrifice their metallic elements, instead focusing much more on the shoegazing side of things that the band has always had albeit in smaller amounts.

The elements of shoegazing has come through in the atmospheric and textured riffs, carrying with them a warm, hazy distortion that contrasts sharply with the bands earlier releases. The voice of Antti Klemmi has also showed noticeable improvements, through the use off effects such as echo and reverb, his vocals compliment the music much more thoroughly and do not detract from the overall aurora of the music. The mumbling effect has vanished, and though the vocals are still half spoken, the overall delivery comes off as more determined and thus is a better representation of his singing as a result. The expressive range of his vocals has increased, allowing Antti to present a wider array of moods, thus adding more tone and depth to the music. Whilst previous albums from Circle of Ouroborus suffered from vocal usage that was simply incongruous with the music underneath, the bands newer releases shows significant improvement in vocal department and has thus evened out the bands sound.

Musically, the band carries on with the ambient style introduced on the prior release Eleven Fingers, and whilst the band carries on in the same vein as the former, the music is much less awkward and monotonous. The ambient effects are more powerful and evocative, with the synthesizer melodies being enjoyable and luscious despite not being particularly distinctive. Skyline Painter perhaps shows the best use of these ambient melodies, with the main keyboard melody that is present throughout the duration being particularly absorbing and atmospheric.

I feel I should point out that aesthetically, The Lost Entrance of the Just exists upon a different wavelength to the bands previous releases. There’s no longer any sense of foreboding or misery within the music, carrying on from the lighter moments of the excellent Unituli, The Lost Entrance of the Just expands upon those ideas and thus succeeds in creating a very light, even happy sounding album that is coated in warm distortion. Whilst The Lost Entrance of the Just lacks the darker, more distinctive edge the bands previous albums carried, it makes up for it by the trance like effect emulated by the simple melodies. The lack of aggression might appear to be a hindrance at first, but further listens reveals an album flowing with atmospheric density. The atmosphere is suitably dreamlike, and although lacking the darkness and aggression prior albums had, the music still comes across as quite dreary. Tired would be a suitably way to describe it, as the music is played at a very languid pace and the vocals lack the energy they had on previous albums. It seems strange, therefore that the music has quite a happy, uplifting vibe to it despite the melancholic undertones. The Lost Entrance of the Just strikes me as the work of a band in transition; the music contains certain elements of the bands previous albums, especially in the darker undertones that are still present. However, there is a sense of hope amidst the often murky soundscapes. The band appears to be embracing a more upbeat, shoegazing direction with their sound although they still hves traits of their prior releases. This clash of styles is never detrimental to the stature of the music as the band focuses on each side of their music in ample amounts, The Lost Entrance of the Just plays music that sounds fundamentally joyous by nature but has a bleak and dreary core.

Although I have criticized Circle of Ouroborus in the past for the clash of styles, The Lost Entrance of the Just is much more comfortable in its genre synthesis, making use of both sides of the band to great effect. The black metal elements are all but vanished musically, but atmospherically the band still dapples in its left overs. Circle of Ouroborus appear to be mellowing out, softening the rough edges of their sound and focusing on a more atmospherically heavy, if musically light, and even poppy direction. The repetitious nature of this album creates a trance like effect, and although the music may not be especially distinctive or unique, the band works well in their existing template by adding a new spin on the direction they have thus far taken.