The celebration of sorrowful ambiance is what awaits anyone who is willing to dive into Owlfood’s latest exploit, Destroyers of the Moon. The band from Boston, releasing an ambient opus, featuring guests such as Greg Moss of 27, Megan Mulhearn of Divine Circles, The Judas Horse and US Christmas, and David Bentley and Nicholas Giadone Ward, both of Hallelujah The Hills.
With such an impressive list of guest and the experience of the members of Owlfood leading the way, the band is able to conjure soundscapes of immense magnitude, crafting a detailed piece of work that works as a map to an alien landscape. Looking through their eyes you can actually feel how they are able to manipulate the body of work that they have created, bending it to their will, making it behave as they choose fit.
The mystical aura of the album is a mere veil behind which the true spirit of Owlfood finds refuge. The melancholy that derives from their music is immediately bound to the violin and the cello, always working to transmit the feelings that they album wishes to convey to the listeners. The messages found here can come in many forms though; in some instances they are melodic, for example the way that the track progresses on the seventh minute leads to an imposing ambiance, aided by an acoustic guitar and with the vocals simply narrating to you (in a similar manner that Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till of Neurosis do on their solo projects) make way for a solitary feeling to suddenly arise, it feels like you are investigating yourself the world that the band has created.
Of course the messages that the band is leaving behind are not always as pleasant, something that becomes quite apparent around the tenth minute of the song, when the electric guitar comes in with an extreme amount of distortion and the surrounding effects adding more to the dissonant side of the band, sending the track down a spiraling path of pessimism. A path that continues to haunt the visitors for quite some time, slowly mutating with the voices piercing your ears contradicting their earlier soothing tone, while the heavy guitars and effects stand by your side as you start to dwell deeper within the core of Owlfood, coming face to face with their much darker and sinister nature. The trip into the darkness continues and is further enhanced around the seventeenth minute with the repetitive theme on the guitar and violin, while at least the vocals return to their earlier, more pleasant manner.
Suddenly a glimpse of sunlight creeps in, around the twentieth minute of “Destroyers of the Moon”, when the violin appears with a sorrowful quality but still with a tremendous amount of melody, starting to paint a more complete landscape of Owlfood’s vision, along with the minimalistic guitar. Of course that does not last so once again the majestic aura resumes after a short break and takes you on to an inspiring guitar lead, after which the violin and cello will once again take hold with their mournful melodies on top of a sea of desolate effects and finally put this album to rest.
It is not just one song that you find within this album. You need to look more at it as a kaleidoscope, distorting your perception of Owlfood’s music. With this one track/album and its twenty-seven minutes, Owlfood will show you much more than you expect.
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