Odes

Honestly, I'm beginning to wonder whether I'm actually listening to the same album as the other two reviewers. Whilst those two praised this album like psychos, I'm sat here scratching my head trying to figure out just what it is about this album that makes it so appealing. I'm a pretty big fan of funeral doom, Thergothon and Worship are two of my favorite bands, so in no way am I new to this whole style, it just seems that Mordor is lacking that special something that makes the aforementioned bands so effective.

Ironically, despite the modern take on funeral doom pooling a lot of influence from the death/doom scene, Mordor- credited as the first funeral doom band- enters this style at a predominantly black metal angle. The ridiculously lo fi production, vocals that make Dagon of Inquisition sound like fucking Andrea Bocelli in comparison and the creepy ambiance are all trade marks of the black metal scene. The music as a whole is a rather dark and very evil sounding style of black metal drawn out to a painfully long degree. Now, I appreciate what the band was going for. The more droning variety of song writing with a heavy ambient edge probably was considered unique and refreshing when it first landed. I've always admired a band that strives for originality no matter the end result, and whilst I can certainly appreciate this on a historical level, it still leaves a sour taste in my mouth no matter how many times I revisit.

The problem with Odes, is that, whilst Mordor clearly have a set goal in mind, the execution is far from satisfactory. The songs drone on and on with very little, if any variation in pacing, tone or atmosphere. The album as a whole feels very stagnant, as though the band was traumatized at the concept of mixing things up a little. The atmosphere, whilst certainly dark, eerie and even depressive at the start, soon begins to wear thin and even gets a little annoying as the album comes to a close. The entire fucking album just seems to be crying out at me "Look how grim I am!!!!!" and thus it seems that most, if not all of the bands attention fell on trying to sound as evil and grim as humanly possible that they severely neglected the important aspects of music; the god damn song writing.

I really hate to criticize music for a lack of structure, truly I do, even the most inaccessible noise/ambient/drone has some semblance of structure that prevents it from being utterly and completely aimless, yet Mordor seem to have absolutely no goal in sight other than to be "evil". The droning nature of this album certainly doesn't help matters, repetition is all well and good if the band have the song writing capabilities to back it up, unfortunately for Mordor they don't have the song writing capabilities, not by a long shot. Minimalism should never be the sole aspect of music, and whilst famous minimalist musicians such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass have been very effective in its use, there was always the song writing, the talent, to make the music so profound and awe inspiring. On Odes, Mordor just feel lazy, as though the whole band was whacked out on valium before entering the recording studio.

Whilst the instrumentation is certainly nothing to write to your mother about, the vocals are really what drag this down. I'm not entirely sure how the vocalist managed to stay awake throughout recording as he sounds close to dropping at any moment. In keeping with the rest of the music (I gotta give them marks for consistency!) they lack structure and thus sound like a random procession of "ARGH" sounds with the occasional "BLERGH" thrown in for good measure. It's all really comical and I often find myself wondering if this is meant to be a parody of the more esoteric varieties of extreme metal as it's just so silly.

Obviously I'm not too keen on this album, but I don't hate it, heck I don't even dislike it as the music is just so harmless and vacant to make much of a connection to anyway. The music just floats along not really offending anyone nor gaining their attention either, it just sort of exists. However I will say this; as a pure representation of nothingness you'd be hard pressed to find a better example than Odes, it's stagnant and empty to the highest order, and that certainly will appeal to certain members of society, I prefer my music to have a bit more substance backing it up. Not bad for what it is, but I don't see the point.

This is one of the most unique and darkest metal albums I have ever heard.
It is almost impossible to try to categorize this band, other than maybe just dark metal, but that does not do their sound justice. The production is raw and primal and so is the music, so it is a perfect fit overall. The songwriting is very free form and experimental. The guitars are very drone-like and drawn out over extremely dissonant keyboards washing over like a tide from the blackest waters of your nightmares. The drums are very much in the background and I can not really hear any bass, but that's simply their style and it doesnt take away from the music in the least.

Overall this is a very obscure and extreme mixture of darkwave and black/death metal and is unlike anything else out there. Because of this, Mordor definitely one of the love/hate bands, so it would be wise to listen before purchasing. Even then, their releases are very hard to find, and I lucked out a bit and happened to stumble across them, but that was 8 years ago, so good luck and may the dark heart of Mordor capture your soul.

This is probably the most evil, tormented, sick piece of "music" I've ever heard. this CD makes bands like Beherit(Drowning-era), Skin Chamber, Thergothon sound like Disney soundtracks. no kidding! actually Mordor did have the evil feel of Beherit(esp in vocals), the ritualistic-industrial-like mono beats of Skin Chamber and the eerie atmospheres of Thergothon. but Mordor did it 3 times longer, 5 times slower and 10 times sicker! and remember that this shit was recorded way back in 1990!! although I don't really consider this as Metal Music, it's more like electric ambient/noise with droning guitars(even some heavily reverbed solos!) and rhythmatic growls here and there. also sometimes the tones of keyboad kinda reminded me of some good ol' 70's Italian horror clips, you know the great Goblin stuff.

Unique? Hell Yes. Recommended? Not really, I guess only the sickest and most fucked-up people will enjoy this haunting masterpiece of torture. This cult act is easily up there with Abruptum and When, but much more musical and obscure.

All three Mordor releases are different in styles and this is the darkest of all, then they just totally disappeared from the scene without a trace. This album was also available on cassette.

Listen with: half bottle of Vodka.