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Obitania > Pagan Crystal Sphere > Reviews
Obitania - Pagan Crystal Sphere

No one actually likes this sort of thing - 41%

Noktorn, March 13th, 2010

Sole member of Obitania Obitus Tartarus' message to the listener in the booklet of 'Pagan Crystal Sphere' is weirdly apologetic, saying not to expect a black metal release and he's sorry if you don't understand that this is supposed to be ambient. It's like he KNEW this was mediocre even as it was being released. Obitania is pretty much the pinnacle of what happens to bedroom ambient when it's given a better production job and seemingly a little bit of budget behind it; it's still not GOOD, but it's professionally bad.

I guess this is essentially derived from late Burzum; the minimal, winding melodies (no more than two or at a stretch three at a time), even the sound of digital instruments is similar to what you hear on 'Hliðskjálf'. The difference is that while Varg was an extremely talented composer who could do anything he wanted with such minimal ingredients, Obitus Tartarus just isn't; these are little pseudo-pagan ambient songs that don't go anywhere but waffle within the same general melodic frameworks throughout the album. The songs on 'Pagan Crystal Sphere' are devastatingly simple and, unsurprisingly, incredibly cheesy, with the little synthesized folk and classical instruments running through their sequencing with a hint of desperation, like he's trying to convince you the music is better than it is. None of the melodies are bad, per se, but given that this is minimal ambient, they're just not good enough to rest on their own and there's not enough going on to hide their general mediocrity. A million little projects just like this are out there plugging away with random CDr releases on Singaporean labels, but not as many get a full, professional CD release out of this sort of thing.

I've heard worse ambient but the cheesiness and lack of memorability of this release alongside its relatively high production values makes it more striking than most. There's really no reason to listen to this even for ambient fans; it's somewhat incompetently composed and all the good on it can be heard in much better forms elsewhere.