Ophis - Withered Shades (CD)

Review
My Global Mind
8/10
26.10.2010

Three years after highly regarded full-length debut in 2007, Traditional Death/Doom masters OPHIS have returned with a second helping of some of the gloomiest tunes that will ever flow through your ears. 2007’s STREAM OD MISERY was a bit of a revelation in the Death/Doom genre and when I discovered that they were about to release their second album I was pretty sure that they wouldn’t be able to live up to the expectations I had for them. Happily I was quite wrong this time around and the new album WITHERED SHADES is every bit as good as its predecessor. There are a few less songs this time around, but of the five on offer two of them run to the fifteen minute mark and the others are all nine minutes plus, so there is still plenty of music to divulge on this release and listening to it can be a quite overbearing feeling.

The main thing I did notice on WITHERED SHADES is just how slow some of the tunes crawl along, I know doom metal is slow music in its essence, but some of the tunes on this album take slow to a whole new level. This is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your taste. For me I did get a bit restless every now and then when some of the more repetitive riffs were reaping at a snails pace, but then every now and then a tempo change, or the occasional blastbeat section get me sitting up straight again. The vocals are of the full gutteral growl variation and it would take a brave man to say that they could understand the words without the lyrics book handy. Luckily for me, I did have the lyrics handy and really enjoyed reading along to the somber words that seem to tick all the appropriate boxes for a good doom metal release.

If OPHIS can keep their run of great doom metal writing at this pace, they may well become one of the most important bands of the genre later on down the track. Until then though, WITHERED SHADES id more than enough to keep most death/doom fans happy and certainly an easy purchase for fans of the groups previous release.

Author: ZeeZe

Review
Necroweb
9/10
05.07.2010

Bislang dachte ich bei Hamburg immer an so schnulzig schwülstigen Kram wie "Das Phantom Der Oper" oder "Lion King". Ophis haben meine Konnotationen glücklicherweise zum Besseren geändert. Aber der Reihe nach!

Bei Ophis handelt es sich um ein noch sehr junges Quartett (gegründet 2001) bestehend aus Philipp Kruppa (v/g), Jan Baum (g), Oliver Kröplin (b) und Nils Groth (d). Bislang sind sie mit einem Demo, einer EP und einem Album in Erscheinung getreten und haben bereits gewaltig Staub im Underground aufgewirbelt. So galten sie in der Usenet Newsgroup de.alt.music.metal schon lange als Geheimtipp nicht nur unter den anwesenden Hamburgern.

"Withered Shades", das Zweitwerk, soll den Jüngern der Schlange (griechisch: Ophis) nun endgültig aus dem Underground in den Olymp helfen. Dazu benötigt man als Doom-Combo vor allem eins: Eigenständigkeit und das Vermögen, den Hörer nicht mit langsamen Lavawalzen in den Schlaf zu wiegen, sondern zu fesseln, zu umfließen und niemals wieder loszulassen. In dieser Hinsicht machen Ophis ihre Sache hervorragend. Die fünf Stücke des Albums pegeln je zwischen 9 und 15 Minuten ein und strotzen vor zäher Lava allererster Güte. Fesselnd, bewegend und zu keinem Zeitpunkt der überlangen Stücke langweilig. Immer mit Melodie und einer Hand für Spannungsbögen aufgebaut sind die Song echte Seelenschmeichler. Man versinkt und ertrinkt geradezu in den Riffs. Geil!

Kommen wir zum Alleinstellungsmerkmal, den Eruptionen. Weil auch Lava nur in den seltensten Fällen einfach so aus dem Vulkan fließt, sondern mit einer Urgewalt herausgeschleudert wird, gibt es auch in den fünf Vulkanausbrüchen hin und wieder heftiges Hochgeschwindigkeitsgeballer auf die Ohren. Und wer nun glaubt, jenes klänge gekünstelt oder unpassend, sollte schleunigst einfach mal in "Earth Expired" reinhören. Nichts ist gekünstelt, aufgesetzt oder zu stark am Reißbrett geplant. Hier und auch in den anderen Songs sitzt der Spannungsbogen perfekt: Eruption, Lava, Break, Lava, Eruption. Fantastisch!

Fazit: Für mich ein Meilenstein des Doom. Wächst mit jedem Durchlauf unaufhörlich weiter. Daher verdiente neun Punkte.

Author: TexJoachim

Review
Metalitalia
7/10

Finalmente gli Ophis, a distanza di tre anni, hanno deciso di dare un successore al meraviglioso esordio “Stream Of Misery”, probabilmente una delle uscite migliori degli ultimi anni in campo doom death! “Withered Shades”, questo il titolo del nuovo lavoro, è meno efficace del suo predecessore, forse più discontinuo, ma ha al proprio interno delle vere e proprie perle che confermano i tedeschi come una delle band di punta della scena. Ad esempio la lunga ed iniziale “The Halls Of Sorrow” è probabilmente il miglior brano di funeral death doom sentito quest’anno, grazie ad una pesantezza estrema alla quale vengono unite delle linee melodiche di stampo quasi classic epic che sono il vero punto di forza del brano. Molto più banale invece la successiva “Suffering Is A Virtue”, dai tempi decisamente meno mortiferi e dal songwriting piuttosto esile. “Earth Expired” non è affatto male, grazie anche a degli inserti armonici di taglio malinconico che riescono a spezzare la pesantezza prettamente doom death dell’insieme. Molto bello anche il break centrale con le chitarre di Philipp Kruppa e Jan Baum, che disegnano arpeggi delicati con il basso di Oliver Kröplin come solo accompagnamento. I due brani finali sono “Necrotic Reflection” ed “Halo Of Worms”: la prima si segnala per un incedere che ricorda quello dei conterranei Ahab e per un ottimo lavoro chitarristico, la seconda invece è uno straordinario esempio di doom death congegnato con semplicità eppure incredibilmente efficace, soprattutto nella prima parte ultra slow. Il growling catacombale di Philipp Kruppa è la voce narrante ideale per le storie di magia nera degli Ophis, che, pur non avendo ripetuto il clamoroso exploit dell’esordio, ci lasciano in dote due brani eccezionali che senza ombra di dubbio appassioneranno i fan del genere. Peccato che le rimanenti tracce siano decisamente meno riuscite, altrimenti saremmo qui a parlare di album dell’anno. Comunque sia la band è di quelle da tenere assolutamente sott’occhio, dato che i numeri di alta scuola li possiede tutti!

Review
Diabolical Conquest
8.4/10
23.08.2010

Solitude Productions’ slew of ‘melancholic’ and ‘gothic’ death/doom can often become tiresome to sort through, but it certainly is made worthwhile when something like Ophis’ newest record is on the table. Having released their debut Stream of Misery three years ago, the North German group established themselves as another propagator of the cold, dark, almost mechanical death/doom that bands like Ataraxie have mastered. Ophis are another constituent of the small collective of European death/doom that focuses on the alienating themes of loss and depression without an overt gothic aesthetic, simply relying on the gloomy melancholy straddling a strong death metal foundation – and they’re all the better for it. While this slower and more drawn out style perhaps is not so accessible or popular as your everyday Swallow the Suns or Draconians (thank God), nor do they appeal as much to the underground death metal community due to their lack of a ‘real’ death metal feel, it’s a rather excellent niche of the genre that while expands only slowly, differentiates itself well from its contemporaries.

What is most marked about bands like Ophis is their inability to really progress their sound. Ataraxie attempted to mix things up after the success of their 2005 released Slow Transcending Agony, and the result was the bitterly disappointing Anhedonie, an album that was still Ataraxie but without any of the band’s previous drive. Ophis itself has hardly changed since the release of Stream of Misery, and while to the disillusioned or the easily bored listener this may be problematic, it ultimately makes little difference to the effect Withered Shades has on the sub-genre. Ophis deliver more of the same, which itself has a number of faults, but nevertheless retains that balance between despondency and aggression that these bands strive for.

The relationship between Ophis’ two records is almost identical to that of the relationship between Process of Guilt’s two records. Process of Guilt, a very similar band hailing from Portugal, found their own variation of the sub-genre’s style (arguably not really a ‘variation’) and maintained it almost exactly with little maturation over the course of three years – there was no progression, merely expansion. And Ophis follow this blueprint almost exactly; this itself is not a bad thing, but a characteristic of the genre they are working in. Due to their simplistic methods and focus on eschewing so called ‘progressive’ elements, their music remains what it is – if you’re a fan, then you’ll certainly remain so.

While the mechanical and rigid structures of the songs on Withered Shades are in stark contrast to their occasional toying with melody, there is more Ataraxie or Evoken to be heard here than, say, Mourning Beloveth – while Ophis and Mourning Beloveth do share much in common, straight out death metal sequences such as the opening of ‘Earth Expired’ or the climactic segment in the monolithic ‘Halls of Sorrow’ firmly place Ophis into the hands of the more iniquitous continental Europeans. Similarities to Ataraxie are very much abound, in perhaps all avenues of criticism, from the guttural vocals to the interchanging between slower, apocalyptic passages and frenetic death metal-inspired aggression. It can be argued that Ophis are pushing it a little with their ‘colossal’ approach – the record has only five tracks but goes longer than an hour, and the songs themselves are not incredibly technical nor varied. That said, the atmosphere conjured makes it more than bearable.

Withered Shades is an ideal propagator of this particular death/doom style, one which is gaining more and more popularity. For someone such as myself, the hordes of melodic death/doom and (generally Eastern European) Eurotrash doom metal makes it very hard to trust any European band that calls themselves death/doom, but Ophis stand head and shoulders above such mediocrity. The record is not original, nor is it incredibly special, but it’s well executed and delivers exactly what fans of this style are thirsty for, which is undoubtedly a good thing. If anything can be said to Ophis, it’s simply this – ‘keep it coming’.

Author: Berkay Erkan