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Hey! Listen to Ouroboros!

Sydney, Australia’s Ouroboros are a technical death metal band who first arrived on the scene in 2011 with their debut album Glorification of a Myth. As with most tech

8 years ago

Sydney, Australia’s Ouroboros are a technical death metal band who first arrived on the scene in 2011 with their debut album Glorification of a Myth. As with most tech death artists, that record placed a great deal of focus on guitar as they concentrated on melodic leads wrapped around intricate riffs and expansive guitar solos. Returning in 2015 with Emanations, there has been a relatively dramatic shift in their sound, as they have simplified their approach to guitar and borderline dropped the ‘tech’ from their playing. Conversely their use of middle-eastern samples, orchestrations, and melodies, having previously been consigned to a relatively minor support role, now find themselves as core tenets of the album. You can see exactly what I mean in the embed below.

As those who have heard the record would know, here we see occult chanting choirs, imperious horns and atmospheric synths combine with dark, brooding riffs to form one of 2015’s better death metal records. Emanations bears similarity to the work of Nile and fellow Sydney-siders Gods of Eden in its use of Egyptian sounds, melodies and atmospheres. Their approaches to guitar are completely different, but where Gods of Eden use these influences to inject bombast and grandeur, Ouroboros seek to inspire a sinister dread. At the same time, they provide a more accessible alternative to Nile, and thus help bring some diversity to the middle-eastern influenced boundaries of death metal, territory which is well worth further exploration. As always remember to follow the band on Facebook and Bandcamp.

Karlo Doroc

Published 8 years ago