Öxxö Xööx – Rëvëürt (2011)

With a very interesting and even their own language, today we have one of France’s most interesting and experimental bands: Öxxö Xööx and their latest release “Rëvëürt”. With almost 80 minutes of genre-bending music, this album delivers nine tracks of excellently crafted Avant-garde Music with Doom metal influences incorporating grand organs, harpsichords and string ensembles.

For people that believe they’ve heard it all, “Rëvëürt” will surely surprise you and will take you into a journey through the unknown. With the opener “Ägörth” the band delivers a monumental track featuring Doom-like structures with eerie passages and a very theatrical edge, similar to what Elend used to do but with a heavier edge.

The organs on “Tërëä” are bone-chilling and so are the harpsichords creating a very deranged (but exquisite) atmosphere unlike anything we have heard before. The way the band’s own language sounds in tracks like “Ämä” is plain weird and exciting at the same time, making us want to spend a few hours trying to decode what the band is actually saying. The vocals in this track are also very creepy and sound like they were pulled from a horror movie.

Our favorite track in this release is the 12-minute epic “Ctënöphörä”, in this track we got the same chills we usually get when listening to “La Masquerade Infernale” by Arcturus, making this release the quintessential landmark album of Avant-garde Doom and how we will be measuring all new releases of this genre in the future. Continuing the madness, “Yüm”, “Nöc säë”, “Lïnï” and “Sülï” deliver more ethereal magic with powerful riffs and some high-intensity sections.

With a very nice flow, this release feels like one single monumental track with many passages and interludes. The music is very cohesive and also extremely characteristic of this band, developing their own unique sound instantly. If you are looking for something extremely out of the ordinary with some Metal elements and an overall feeling of craziness, look no further and get “Rëvëürt” immediately. We hope to hear more for this band in the future, but until then we will keep replaying this CD very often for sure.

Release: October 10th, 2011

Country: France