Review by: Elliot Klimowski
Score: 6.5/10
Organ is a funeral doom metal band from Italy formed recently in 2014 by members of the obscure Amia Venera Landscape and Discomfort/Hobos. Tetro is their debut album and was released via their Bandcamp page. Instantly upon pressing play you can tell it’s going to be a gritty ride into depravity with these fellas. The album opens up with the heavy hitting “Slave Ship,” a song about one’s desire to die while crossing the Atlantic on the way to the new world. While repetitive, the song’s eerie lead lines swimming in flanges and horrifying vocal lines create an excellent sludgy atmosphere. Most of the songs on the album have a repetitive nature as is the case with many funeral sludge bands, but the ground-up bass sound covered in processed lead lines is simply irresistible in this particular opus. Imagine a really dirty sounding Swallow the Sun, mixed with some Candlemass with Dax Riggs on the pipes and you may come close to whatever semblance of likeness Organ leans at. Organ is like the guy who is slowly trying to beat you to death but stops just before you take your last breath, a release in the form of a song format change. The interlude track “Hal” seems a bit like a filler piece which could have been omitted, but it was necessary to solidly exceed the 30-minute mark justifying the “album” classification as opposed to an EP. The album finishes a bit more suddenly than one might expect, but it’s a solid release that is compact as well. Perfect for your daily commute into St. Louis from the exurbs, you parasite. While not something towards which I would typically gravitate, Organ has positioned itself to be a funeral sludge mainstay in the future. Moss would be proud. Overall Tetro is fairly run-of-the-mill funeral doom, but they’ve carved out a unique enough sound to pave their own path going forward.
RIYL: Moss, Om, Swallow the Sun sans synth
FCC #2
