Review Summary: How do you keep on living, when everyday is exactly the same?
It is apparent that the progressive genre is really difficult for musicians to conquer, mainly because the term itself leaves no clue about the music that is to be composed. Every known music genre - not only metal or rock - can be named progressive by simply being innovative. That is why bands with completely different taste in music, from Pink Floyd to Ulver, are sometimes thought to be progressive. What matters in the end though is the music itself and whether or not it achieves to take a step further, pass the boarders of recent creativity.
Need is not a band that expands the limits of music, not at all, besides being labeled as progressive. They actually resemble Riverside or Pain of Salvation at moments. However, what they have to show is a collection of elements from both metal and rock, without sounding meretricious. Any sound is so perfectly put in the album that soon you forget anything about labels and focus on music itself.
I'm not acquaintance with their past work but a brief search reveals that this must be their most profound work that erases everything they have done so far. While having songs ranging up to ten and eighteen minutes, they stay away from shredding and soloing, crafting a masterpiece that makes the listener go astray.
Orvam (which is the word Mavro (black in Greek) written backwards) is an album that has to be listened carefully and till the end, as it is more considered as a dark story of agony, loss, nostalgia, insensitivity and - ultimately - death, rather than a simple collection of songs. Whatever one might seek, like up-tempo compositions such as Lifeknot, spiritual and esoteric songs like Entheogen, or small interludes overflowing with emotion as Hotel Oniro is (mean. Hotel Dream), the album is there to please.
Musicianship is beyond any question, as is production or anything for that matter, considering that an album is evaluated for music, lyrics, production and cover art. The picture of the old man on the cover is actually what is left of anyone who is struggling in life with nothing but himself as company, that perfectly matches the albums message.
If anything is to be said though about this album, that is the last homonymous song, a long lyrical epos in the name of loneliness, struggle, and need for revenge against those who steal our purest emotions, leaving us cold. It is a song that suspenseful, that tests our nerves, our own ability to restrain our anger and distress. Even the most demanding listener will finally bend over the feeling of catharsis that this song provides. The speech in the end seems like it's been given by the same old striving soul that narrates the whole album.
As it is in Greek language, I think a translation will manage to show the depth of desperation and sadness that characterizes the album on its whole: I am the tower, and the perfume... and in my veins runs rain water. I am the iron ball of echo and every autumn I blossom. I am legs rooted in the sea of immobility. I am marching. It is me, forever, the blind and immaculate god. I clamor against predators not to understand that I really don't exist. I am the three, before two. I am the sepsis of liver, the end before the journey. Smell my color if you can... Orvam.
After such a poetic ending, the listener is left in complete silence , trying to digest the richness of sounds. A necessary classic for any lover of progressive, though I would tempt anybody who loves qualitative music to give it a try. Orvam may be a song for home, but the album is something for everyone.
