Abysmal Despair is the debut album from Sweden's Odyssey, a stoner/sludge band who find themselves on Record Heaven / Transubstans Records. Not content to follow the same Black Sabbath inspired path that so many acts of this nature choose, Odyssey's sound is more rooted in the early noise rock/punk movement, like the MC5 or Iggy Pop & the Stooges. Thick, fat, guitar & bass grooves, pounding drums, and screaming, punk flavored vocals is on the menu here, making for an energetic listening experience, as the songs fluctuate from botton heavy, low-end dirges to more manic bouts of aggression. To these ears, the noisy punk aspect of their sound doesn't really work. If these guys want to be taken seriously as a doom/stoner/sludge band, the endless screaming and noisy interludes have more in common with the screamo and metalcore crowd than they do with Odyssey's intended audience. And, as heavy as parts of this album are, there isn't a lot of really memorable riffs, which for this style of music really is a make or break aspect. "Keloma" comes the closest to delivering some mammoth riffage, and "No Fucking Way" has a certain early Mastodon feel to it, but a track like "Wolfspit And Witches Breat" starts off with some wild Grand Funk Railroad/MC5 styled distorted guitar thunder before those punkish vocals kick in and take things down a notch.
There's no doubt that there is a market for Abysmal Despair, but if Odyssey are trying to target some of the great behemoths of the '70s and '80s, they are going to have to rethink their attack a little bit.
Track Listing
01 Pyramids
02 Wicked Witch
03 Abysmal Despair
04 Keloma
05 No Fucking Way
06 Wolfspit And Witches Breat
07 This Ship Is Sinking
08 Darkred
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