Review Summary: The scariest, most trance-inducing, and most unbelievable album I've ever heard all rolled into one. Black metal fans, get ready.
To be openly frank, I’m not much of a black metal listener. I’ve listened to Burzum’s Filosofem and really enjoyed tracks like Dunkelhiet, Jesus Tod, and all of the other songs that are too hard to spell. Agalloch’s The Mantle is a damn classic, one of the best albums I have in my music library. And then there’s Uskonrauha’s only album, Kielletyt Tervehdykset, which might be the worst thing to ever pierce my eardrums. That, besides one or two songs by Drudkh, Bathory, Venom, and Darkthrone, are the deepest steps I’ve taken into the murky pool of black metal.
So imagine my surprise when I stumbled across Myrimin’s Bolota Ohta and not only loved it, but became engulfed in the world it created.
So I was on a typical YouTube spree looking up random independent label metal releases, one after another. Generic thrash, generic death, generic black, blah blah blah DAMN give me something good! So I click on one final video, some generic thumbnail of a b&w forest or something and gave it a go. I laughed at the sentence-long song names and the horrible quality. But the first few moments came on, an acoustic guitar playing against a vibrant breeze…suddenly, I’m relaxed. The most relaxed ever. It feels good. Staring at a still image of a b&W forest while listening to track one made me inhumanly tranquil. Suddenly the guitars fade away and distant and slightly disturbing squeals slowly come into the foreground. Then BAM! The album begins.
Bolota Ohta suffers from all of the usual Black Metal stereotypes. Song titles as long as song length, awful quality, unknown language, high pitched vocals, terrible mixing, you know the drill. But the ambience is unbelievable. The first real song, titled Moj Razmova Zadnica Atrymlivaje sciply chitryki (whatever language that is in), spans on for an eternity with the same ¾ riff playing over and over and over and over and over again, but bringing yourself into the mood will slowly find yourself being transported to a darker land. Some might complain about the long ass runtimes, but if they were only 3 or 4 minutes, then you’d be left saying “well, that sucked. 3 minutes of the same riff.” With 9 minute+ song times, you find yourself hypnotized into a trance, unable to click to a different video, unable to change the track, unable to move period.
Either way, track three uses several riffs, some of which sound slightly punk or thrash influenced, as well as some ambience thrown in there. This track, Valodać Ledzi * Liasnoj Kolieru žyllia * Samaj Vysokaj pakoi samaj vysokaj viežy, whatever the hell that means, is easily the best track on the album, as well as the longest, spanning for nearly 15 minutes. Valodac has the best quality of all the songs on the album and is also the only song to uses several riffs and time signatures, all of which are extremely catchy. It, along with the final album track, are the only two songs that you could listen to separately from the rest of the album and still enjoy. You see, this isn’t really an album to listen to while at the gym or walking to your next class at college, oh no, this is an experience. To listen to Bolota Ohta properly means to find a quiet room, clear your mind, and dive into the murky swamp by listening to the full album in its entirety in one go.
The ambient tracks are brilliant too. The ending of track three is extremely chilling, and track four, called Joha Ohta is one of the most effect things I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Damn is it good! You hear the sounds of the woods and then suddenly the roar of a massive beast cuts the silence and everything goes ape***. It’s a masterpiece and it perfectly transitions into the next track, a short guitar ambient riff, which then transitions into the next track even more perfectly. Notice one key word here: perfect. This is all perfect. Track 7 is yet another ambient track, and this one sounds like the hellish cries of tortured souls being sucked down into hell. I first listened to it in the dark with Dr Dre’s on, and I actually had to pause it due to how terrified I was, especially the ending with the high pitched squeals. Play this *** at a Halloween haunted house or something and watch everyone get scared ***less.
The final track is totally different from the rest of the album as it resembles more of a sludgy stoner metal sound than black metal. C-tuned guitars on the low E string, one hell of a heavy riff. “Bummmmmmmmm……..Bumm Bummmmm…..” great stuff. This riff, with better quality, could make for one hell of a metal song. There’s a chuggy riff towards the middle that makes me want to go ***ing insane, I want to hear that one on a 10 hour loop!
There isn’t much more to say. If you like black metal, whether it be first or second wave, you should adore the *** out of this. I’ve listened to the full thing a few times and it’s absolutely mesmerizing. Don’t be fooled by the seemingly stock black metal clichés that shroud this album like a thick grey cloud, every track on this thing is magnificent. Though, to be honest, this should only be one giant 50-minute long track and not 8 separate tracks. But, either way, this needs to be an album well renown around the black metal community; the fact that this album only had 2 votes before me is truly sickening. Truly. Don’t believe me? Well, find a quiet spot for an hour or so, clear your brain, check out the link below, and find yourself in another realm. Happy travels!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDEjjF5XzBg
