ÓREIÐA - s/t - MC

Limited to 100 copies.
Hailing from the modern black metal hotbed of Iceland, ÓREIÐA are an enigma within a scene rife with enigmas. A nameless but by no means faceless entity, ÓREIÐA made its/their first public recording with Demó I in 2016, which was soon released on cassette and 7" vinyl formats at the beginning of 2017 by HARVEST OF DEATH. Ensorcelled by the entity's monolithic trance-out black metal, HARVEST OF DEATH released in late 2017 ÓREIÐA's one-track/20-minute Demó II on cassette, which was soon followed by a split 10" with Portuguese comrades HOLOCAUSTO EM CHAMAS the following year.

With these but all-too-fleeting glimpses into true, brilliant madness, ÓREIÐA at last delivers its/their first full-length recording, Óreiða. Its self-titled designation is significant, as this four-song/35-minute tome serves as both Ground Zero for the ÓREIÐA experience and also a statement of intent. With a sort of paradoxically "enlightened" primitivism, each of the album's four icy, component screeds surges into being and locks onto near-stasis, hovering and taunting in equal measure. Deceptively, each of those four epics seems comprised of one or perhaps two riffs total; delve deeper - or deliver thyself to TOTAL IMMERSION - and discover a wealth of textural magick, subtly dynamic details in which to drown and rearrange one's mental parameters. Likewise, the seemingly wholesale lack of vocals is both stark and stratifying; allow that immersion, that submission to drowning, and then truly hear reverse voices of the dead wafting up from the soundfield to whisper buried secrets. Through it all, a shimmering, stained-glass style of melodicism emerges (synth? more guitars? both?), simultaneously at odds with the lifelessly pulsing black metal at hand and making perfect, alternate-world sense.

Once again, HARVEST OF DEATH points the way for the future by dragging it beyond a primitive past: here lies, and arises, ÓREIÐA's Óreiða.