Style: Progressive Blackened Death Metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Kardashev, Ne Obliviscaris
Review by: Cooper
Country: US-CA
Release date: 21 April, 2023
As I began my first listen of Velvet Incandescence, I was wide-eyed and hopeful, echoes of The Art of Morphology, Dawn of Ouroboros’ previous outing, still ringing in my ears. But as the calm chords and vocals and the eventual pounding of drums and distortion of opening track “Healing Grounds” washed over me, I couldn’t help but feel like I was missing something. On paper, the song checks nearly every box to make it something I should love with its progressive song structure, diverse sonic palette, and heavy as hell riffs all packaged together with next to zero bloat. Unfortunately though, like piss on a painting, the production here manages to take something that could have been beautiful and distract/detract from it so much that I can’t help but be disappointed.
Because of Velvet Incandescence’s production woes (and because of song writing choices that I’ll dig into later), the majority of the album coagulates into a uniform mush in my memory devoid of any emotion greater than boredom, but occasionally, as I listened, I would find myself either so disappointed or frustrated that I couldn’t help but remember those moments. One such moment was early in the album, during “Testudines”, where a rallying vocal line should be taking center-stage as the song rushes towards its climax, but despite being able to hear the vocals clearly I can’t actually understand a word of what’s being said through the tinny effect that coats every word and the static that this album calls a guitar tone. For all I know, vocalist Chelsea Murphy could be singing in pig Latin and I would be none the wiser. And I could have looked past this moment had it been a solitary event, but just a few songs later on “Levitating Pacifics” the exact same thing is done! Not only does this example embody the album’s repetitive song writing and strange production choices, but it turns a moment that I would have forgotten into one of the core memories of my listening experience. It’s almost as though Dawn of Ouroboros heard the larger bands of the genre like Ne Obliviscaris and Kardashev and decided that it must be the meager production that fans of these bands enjoy as opposed to stuff like, ya know, substance.
There are some highlights, though, on Velvet Incandescence such as the clever riff transitions during “Iron Whispers” and the actual climax of “Testudines”, which was the only point I found my head moving as I listened, but once again much of the album just blends into mush. Several songs sound nearly identical, monotonous sections drag on into infinity, and I swear that I still hear the constant double bass rattling around in my skull (I guess there’s another thing they took from NeO). The guitar solos were especially disappointing, never once leaving a lasting effect on me no matter how much they were dressed up with double tracked harmonies or effects. It gets to the point where I believe that even if the production had been perfect, the song writing would have still held Velvet Incandescence back quite a bit.
Truthfully, I am probably being more critical than much of this album warrants, but that is simply because I am so disappointed. The story of Velvet Incandescence is one of missed potential, and therefore I must make it explicitly clear just how badly Dawn of Ouroboros fumbled the bag. I know that Dawn of Ouroboros has the capability to create great music, but there is little of it to be found on Velvet Incandescence.
Recommended tracks: Testudines, Iron Whispers
You may also like: Vintersea
Final verdict: 4/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives Page
Label: Prosthetic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website
Band in question is:
– Chelsea Murphy (vocals)
– Tony Thomas (guitars, keyboards)
– David Scanlon (bass)
– Ron Bertrand (drums)
– Ian Baker (rhythm guitars)
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