Another reason is they're surprisingly good. Put all these things together and you get the quartet that is Ophis.
Angry guitars dominate the landscape as spite filled riffs
hit the listener relentlessly from start to finish.
Typically opened chorded passages that evolve into moderate to slow chugging dirges of pure pain are what to expect here. The drums have an nice minimalism about them; specifically that they are very understated but not buried in the near constant wall of sound.
Despite the unresolved anger issues the band unabashedly exhibits there is a lot of melancholy in the mix. Despite the fact there are two guitarists in the band they tend to follow each other too closely.
The guitars are mostly distorted with a few clean parts over distorted riffs. There are very few leads and no solos. The music overall is mostly slow to moderate with a few faster bursts here and there. The double bass work is very rudimentary but very clean and incredibly fast in said parts.
The music is simplistic but effective and while hinting at mid period My Dying Bride (and perhaps Orphaned Land oddly) at times is fairly original. There is a good mix of death to black in this doom alternating between more passive black passages and more bludgeoning death passages. The vocals are great too opting for death growls over shrieks.
Not the most subtle or poetic, this album reinforces the stereotype that Germans have no sense of humor. Thankfully they typically seem to deliver on the musical front. This gets a 7.5/10.
Words Grimmdoom
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