Dawn of Ouroboros "The Art of Morphology" <REVIEW>
“… somber atmosphere that can turn happy people into brooding anime characters in less than a minute…”
Would you believe that face used to be so pretty? Who knew photoshop could decay a face like that? Dawn of Ouroboros is a Blackened Progressive Metal band from California. Think of it as a super-group of sorts, founded by Tony Thomas on guitars (Sentient Ignition, that green metal band from last year Botanist, and ex-Absent Society) and Chelsea Murphy with vocals (ex-Kinnefret and was part of the vocal sessions for DOOM: Eternal (specifically the badass Death Metal choir for the soundtrack)), eventually bringing on a David Scanlon on bass (Deliria, Melek Taus) and Tony’s other bandmate Ron Bertrand of Sentient Ignition and Botanist behind the kit. With a full band put together, the band felt it was time to release their debut album The Art of Morphology.
Talking about the album’s sound, Dawn of Ouroboros (whom I’m now just going to call DOO for simplicity sake (plus it’s fun to say Doo in this context)) commented: “Our Goal for this album was to find our voice and experiment openly with sound, emotion, and chemistry as a whole. Lyrically, we chose to be free with our ideas and not stick to a single concept. Song inspirations ranging from our favorite horror manga series to the seriousness of profound loss and mental anguishes. We think our music falls under the genre tags of progressive blackened metal, however, it is really up to the listeners interpretation.“
With such a vague understanding of the subject matter going into the album, it only makes sense to make sense of the music at hand and leave it to the ears of the beholder. So this review (much like other reviews) is based on the ears of the clown writing this, and isn’t going to be reflective of how YOU might feel about it. With that out of the way, let’s not waste much more time, let’s get straight into it…
Starting off with “Revivified Spirits” (which sounds like a bit of an oxymoron), we get an idea of the sonic landscape we’re dealing with as it opens up with the sound of funeral rain and dark, shadowy synth layers that put you in a quiet, bleak outlook of the world (which if the coronavirus hasn’t done that to you already, consider yourself a happy person). Once the guitar fades in, it adds another layer to this melancholy sandwich with eerie chord progressions. Add in the sound of Chelsea’s echoed whispers and the song sets the tone for what the rest of the song is bound to sound like. Like a thunder cloud, it builds slowly overtime before releasing all its energy in one hellish blast of lightning. When that happens, the full band kicks into gear with what you’d expect from any form of blackened metal. Lead lines tremolo picked for days on the guitar, driving blast beats, slightly audible bass lines, and a powerful shout, this is the point where the album gets going. Continuing onward from there, the same ideas travel with you for “Pinnacle Induced Vertigo”. Starting you off with the blackened atmosphere and eventually leading you in to the heavy shit. Here we begin to see the further chops of the band, as unlike the predecessor, this song is more death metal than it is black metal. It’s also where we get our first few moments of clean singing, at which point if you listen closely enough you an hear death metal fans screeching heresy, but for others, her silky smooth contralto adds a sort of jazzy spice to this soup of sounds and styles that’s very reminiscent of Alissa White-Gluz’s clean register. In fact, I’d say even her harsh vocal style is reminiscent of Alissa as well. Could be why I like it so much.
Diving further into the ever changing atmospheric aspect of the album, the piano interlude “gateway to Tenebrosity” is a very nice song that takes a quick break from the heavy death metal side of DOO’s sound to set a relaxing sound while still keeping the tone pretty gloomy. This aspect continues, even as the piano sound becomes more electronic on “Lunar Cathexis”. It shares a similar sort of DNA to the previous tracks but still has it’s own identity. The doom-esque soundscape pairs well with the progressive nature of the album, and the band finally let David be heard more here, and he’s laying down some smooth bass lines to coexist with the softer moments. The band thus far are proving themselves well. I do wish the bass would be more clear in places, and the production isn’t lending itself too much, but I’m pretty satisfied thus far.
The latter half of the album (in my opinion) is where DOO begins to shine brighter on The Art of Morphology. The black metal beginning of “Spiral of Hypnotism” crashes in after a few seconds of piano (okay, nothing new thus far, but the fact it only lasts a few seconds instead of a few minutes is different enough that I gotta give points), and we move away from the more remorseful atmosphere we were previously in and towards something slightly more sinister, while still holding on to that bleak outlook. This is the song I think most melodic black metal fans will gravitate towards the most. It’s loud yet eerie, it’s sad yet ominous, it’s black metal yet black metal… okay that last one was redundant, but you get the idea. What I like most about the album as a whole exists in this song, its ability to balance heavy and malevolent with soft and melancholy like a br00tal Yin and Yang. “Serpent’s Charm” wastes no time getting into the metal aspect of this band, as I’m sure for many is a refresher as we don’t need to build an atmosphere that already exists (someone should’ve told some of the other songs that) and is easily the quintessential black metal song. Blast beats, loud guitars, fuzzy bass, screeching vocals… even heavy breathing to end the song. Classic.
“Sorrows Eclipse” follows the same mentality, starting off loud and intense. However it’s much more like “Spiral of Hypnotism” for more than just the run length. The song allows more breathing room for atmosphere to build, which works seeing as there’s more time for that kind of thing, but also takes the time to play around with more stylistic choices such as the alt-metal chorus half-way through that Trapt wishes he could’ve written. And the album closes out with “Valiant Abscond”, a 4-minute interlude that answers the question “Are these guys progressive?” A great song, though slightly surprised Jordan Rudess doesn’t have a performance credit for the synth.
Looking back on my multiple listens, I got, more or less, what I was expecting from The Art of Morphology. An album of somber atmosphere that can turn happy people into brooding anime characters in less than a minute and balances the scales between sad and sinister like a tightrope walker. I had a good time with this album from beginning to end, though I must admit it’s not perfect. For one, DOO committed a crime I can only describe as “over-building atmosphere”. Basically, the first half of the album was over-reliant on moody emotional building, using the intros of each song and drawing them out longer than needed. While that kind of thing worked on “Revivified Spirits” (it was the opener) and “Gateway to Tenebrosity” (it was an interlude), it felt unnecessary to include on “Pinnacle Induced Vertigo” and “Lunar Cathexis”, at least at the length those softer openings were. On top of that, despite my gripes, the album as a whole was shorter than expected. It’s not a huge problem, as in a way too much can be a bad thing (see previous statement), but listening through it felt like there should’ve been more.
But that’s just from my perspective, because this is based on MY personal preferences. So overall, DOO’s The Art of Morphology is a moving listen from beginning to end, with great atmosphere and intense soundscapes, it delivers on its many influences to create an assortment of musical flavours for one stop. While the atmosphere may have drawn on a bit more than necessary, and I still think it could’ve used one more song, The Art of Morphology is worth picking up. Just be careful not to get too sad while listening. The world is already ending, best not make it too depressing.
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