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""Fear" looks like a mix between King Crimson and Magma, in which progressive rock, jazz and doom merge."
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5/5
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Onségen Ensemble is one of those rather unclassifiable formations that one would be tempted to classify, perhaps awkwardly, in progressive rock. Understand that the Finns do less in the technical unpacking than in the artistic performance. The music is most often instrumental, although choirs, female or male come at times to haunt compositions with blurred contours and moving architecture.
Around a guitar/bass/drums core is grafted a variable geometry line-up in which saxophonist, clarinetist or violinist (among many others) cross paths. Covered with ghostly keyboards, the ensemble is adorned with powerful kinematic finery. On a rather heavy base, however, remnants of the metal roots of its main craftsmen, the most cosmic space rock is intertwined with the most crazy free jazz in a fusion of elements that is sometimes not without evoking Magma. For all these reasons, the collective would find all its place on the Roadburn Festival's poster (if it is not already done) while the label Svart Records naturally opens its arms wide within a catalog where doom rubs shoulders with hallucinated progressive.
This being said, words are lacking to describe a music freed from codes and borders. To penetrate in this music is still the best way to measure the talent coupled with a deaf madness of these enigmatic Finns. Succeeding "Awalaï" (2016) and "Duel" (2018), "Fear" thus offers a wonderful door to enter this elusive but never really hermetic universe. On the contrary, it possesses an admirable fluidity that confines it to an undeniable bewitchment and prevents it from getting bogged down in a complexity as useless as it is indigestible.
The filiation with Magma (for the chorus) and King Crimson for this freedom of tone mixed with a hardness of line is striking on the inaugural 'Non-Returner'. The sequence with 'Stellar' is magnificent, once again an indescribable and yet magical track, as if touched by Grace. For there is something of the Divine, of the religious, in this haunted keyboards, this ferruginous riffs, this hypnotic rhythms, this ramshackle saxophone and aggressive vocalizations.
In spite of their thick budding, all the compositions remain melodic, although they like to unfold in a strange darkness ('Lament Of Man'), true emotional wells whose mysterious emanations made the pilgrim quickly carried away in this sensitive whirlwind, just like this 'Earthless' whose first measures seem to be extracted from "In the Court Of The Crimson King".
"Fear" has to be listened to in its entirety as it is obvious that each title forms the successive milestone of a mystical quest. Try the adventure and come to discover as soon as possible this Finnish ensemble as rare as it is precious, whose score sounds like an invitation for an artistic as well as spiritual journey. - Official website
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TRACK LISTING:
01. Non-returner - 07:34 02. Stellar - 08:57 03. Earthless - 05:17 04. Fear - 07:23 05. Sparrow's Song - 05:04 06. Lament Of Man - 08:44 07. Satyagrahi - 06:17
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(0) MIND(S) FROM OUR READERS
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Top of the page
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(1) COMMENT(S)
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READERS
3/5 (1 view(s))
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STAFF:
4.5/5 (2 view(s))
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OTHER REVIEWS
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OTHER(S) REVIEWS ABOUT ONSÉGEN ENSEMBLE
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