Ordeal by Roses - A Pettey and Childish Obsession.

Ordeal by Roses – A Petty and Childish Obsession – Cassette/Download – Outsider Art – OA033 – 2019.

https://outsiderart.bandcamp.com/album/a-petty-and-childish-obssession

https://outsiderart.bigcartel.com/

https://ordxxlbxrxsxs.bandcamp.com/

Tracklist. 

     1.   Sacred Waters.

     2.   Endless Grey.

     3.   Empty Chair.

‘all this stuff that I’m saying now, it feels like it’s just a load of bullshit to me, it may mean something, but in the end it’s something that happened.’ Album opening quote.

I kept checking Outsider Art until this landed today again and again, I was going to write up the pre notes from an Instagram photo yesterday, it's like that.

Sacred Waters is immediately harrowing, resonating deep sadness as simple keyboard lines repeat over sampled drones that have a churchlike and spiritual feel. The muffled distant vocal erupts and is warped through warbling effects as the sounds’ sonic platform distorts and shifts. As waves of distortion enter, they overwhelm emotionally and sonically.

Sharp bursts of noise come, and shrill coils of sound reinforce these – however this time the vocal is prepared as it shouts and fights with the noise. The vocal intensifies as do the sounds, neither lets up. Endless Grey appears to be a fight that simultaneously rips inwards and outwards, but the sound eventually backs the vocal up to become an outward pouring of Trauma and grief, this shifts method to a spoken delivery and continues its work.

Empty Chair previously appeared as a lone track on the Ordeal by Roses Bandcamp earlier this year. Here its mournfulness is amplified by the vocals and bleak synths, serving as a perfect finale to A Petty and Childish Obsession.

At 3.32 on Halloween moments like this are my reward for doing this blog. Power Electronics is dead? - listen to this, Active Denial, S.T.A.B, Suffer in April or Niku Daruma and it very much isn’t. Every element familiar to the Ordeal by Roses sound has been perfected via minimal combinations so that within the space of each track, the feelings and moods that need to be conveyed are very clear and concise. 

This release is either as good or better than the first one, but that was perfect too, so I can’t really ask for more or say any more.

Nevis Kretini 2019.