For anyone familiar with the effects of alcohol, “Unituli” should provide for a similar experience. Indeend, though Circle of Ouroborus creates music soberly, the music itself sounds like what an inebriated listener would hear when a live black metal band is playing.
A thick haze of reverb hangs over the music as if each and every sound bouncing off of your eardrum is forced to struggle through thick, vodka saturated blood, thus preventing any hope of prompt aural perceptions reaching your brain. The reverb here constantly goes far beyond what is normal for most music and even pushes the limits of how much reverb is normally useable for a black metal band. This results in the music sounding far away, but only because the listener is down the hallway leaning over a toilet in an echoey restroom. With such an unusual amount of reverb, the album amplifies the sensation that one is listening to a live recording, yet it all retains a very listenable quality.
For example, Antti Klemi’s vocals stand out as the most striking and memorable aspect of “Unituli.” While being drowned in reverb like everything else, the underlying style is quite unusual. The vast majority of the lyrics are presented in a melodic but almost spoken style. While a speaker of Finnish may find this as a clear way to present the lyrics, everyone else is given a foreign language that the reverb makes even more unintelligible. Again, this reenforces the sensation of drunkenness.
Atmospheric black metal is likely the best label to apply to the music’s end result. At times, tremolo picking rings out in a way that sounds as if a synthesizer was creating all of the guitar sounds. Though contrary to usual practice for the genre, Circle of Ouroborus seems to have cut out a lot of the high end guitar frequencies. Often, this buries the melody as the drum’s snare and hi-hat ring out and overtake the hissing role normally played by black metal guitars. Even when the guitars slow down, as they frequently do, the melody sounds buried.
This same melody burying effect makes “Unituli” something worth listening to more than once. While chord progressions pour through the mix creating the overall atmosphere, quiet higher melodies flicker in and out of the background like unreachable fireflies peppering the night sky in an ever changing reticulation. These melodies feel effervescent not just because they are so quiet, but also because they never provide a strong sense of where one riff ends and the next starts.
The riff about 80 seconds into the song “Aamusta” is an excellent example of this phenomena. There, the guitar trades off between placing chords or single notes in the forefront, thus creating a lot of energy that never really reaches a melodic resolution. However, “Lahoan” is the album’s standout track and an even better example. “Lahoan” features plenty of long fadeout shouting, a melody so quiet it feels like you are hearing a secret, and smooth guitar lines that will slowly seep into your body.
Oddly enough, the DSBM style appears to have some minor influence on the album, as evinced by the dissonant and melancholic opening riff. Circle of Ouroborus best illustrates how DSBM can be incorporated into more atmospheric music on the song “Unohduksen Puistossa.” Riffs alternate between being rather upbeat with faster drumming and slow tortured riffs that would not be out of place being repeated ad nauseam in a Xasthur song. This mix makes the music as a whole more dynamic. Even through the constant haze of reverb, the changing tempos punctuate the music like memories in an evening of excess revelry.
While most music sounds muddled in such a reverb laden atmosphere, “Unituli” somehow creates an enjoyable experience. The notes, and even your memory of them, may come out as a blur, but overall the album is very pleasant as you experience it. Afterwards, you may be left less satisfied and wondering where 40 odd minutes of your life went, yet many listeners may still retain a fond if not hazy memory of “Unituli.”
Sample: youtube.com/watch?v=ZLN4vUFwrLs
