These guys have real Harakiri For The Sky syndrome - their sound is nice, but the albums are way too long; the super-long songs you can get lost in the soundscapes, but do push the limits, while the interludes are way too bloated. Still, pleasant enough background listening

Written by musclassia on 29.01.2024 at 10:32

These guys have real Harakiri For The Sky syndrome - their sound is nice, but the albums are way too long; the super-long songs you can get lost in the soundscapes, but do push the limits, while the interludes are way too bloated. Still, pleasant enough background listening

I've yet to listen to anything from this band, but as I've never really been able to get into Harakiri For The Sky, and judging on this album length (which sounds unnecessarily long to me) it leaves me feeling pessimistic of what to expect.

People's attention spans are too short these days, this was a great album, the long interludes giving me a shoegazey passage dhiver feel.

Written by no one on 02.02.2024 at 02:47

People's attention spans are too short these days

I feel that's a bit of a reductive way of looking at it; I'm assuming it's in reference to my comment, so I would say that of the last 5 years, my favourite release in 4 of them (A Dawn To Fear, Lucid Planet II, Etenem Aenka, and Aion) have been between 67 and 79 minutes, so it's not length on principle that I'm opposed to. It's more that if an album's going to demand my attention for that much time, it needs to offer a bit more to merit me sticking with it versus moving onto something else; it's easier to shrug off a minute or two of underwhelming material on a 15-minute EP that's going to be over soon. An example of an album in this vein justifying its long runtime that comes to mind is Heretoir's The Circle, which for me fully earned all of its 60+ minutes, while Nightsphere from last year had more moments where my attention wavered despite being 20 minutes shorter.

As for Olhava, this is their third length record I've heard after Ladoga and Reborn, and I've moderately enjoyed each of them, but they don't have the most riveting writing; Sacrifice in particular has 15+minute epics that neither offer much in the way of novelty nor evolve all that much across their durations, and the ambient pieces don't evolve at all, so it really lives or dies on whether the atmosphere it creates is compelling enough to make you want to immerse yourself in it for 80+ minutes, and for me the answer turned out to be no. Given that you gave it a 7, it doesn't seem to have done that much more for you either.

Written by musclassia on 02.02.2024 at 14:13

Written by no one on 02.02.2024 at 02:47

People's attention spans are too short these days

I feel that's a bit of a reductive way of looking at it; I'm assuming it's in reference to my comment, so I would say that of the last 5 years, my favourite release in 4 of them (A Dawn To Fear, Lucid Planet II, Etenem Aenka, and Aion) have been between 67 and 79 minutes, so it's not length on principle that I'm opposed to. It's more that if an album's going to demand my attention for that much time, it needs to offer a bit more to merit me sticking with it versus moving onto something else; it's easier to shrug off a minute or two of underwhelming material on a 15-minute EP that's going to be over soon. An example of an album in this vein justifying its long runtime that comes to mind is Heretoir's The Circle, which for me fully earned all of its 60+ minutes, while Nightsphere from last year had more moments where my attention wavered despite being 20 minutes shorter.

As for Olhava, this is their third length record I've heard after Ladoga and Reborn, and I've moderately enjoyed each of them, but they don't have the most riveting writing; Sacrifice in particular has 15+minute epics that neither offer much in the way of novelty nor evolve all that much across their durations, and the ambient pieces don't evolve at all, so it really lives or dies on whether the atmosphere it creates is compelling enough to make you want to immerse yourself in it for 80+ minutes, and for me the answer turned out to be no. Given that you gave it a 7, it doesn't seem to have done that much more for you either.

It was a reductive way of looking at it and I shouldn't have even put it my comment really as it it did look like I was aiming at you specifically.
It just feels like that every time I see a long album on here that is slightly monotonous with its sound it gets that kind of comment lately. For me a long album that is monotonous and doesnt evolve all the time creates a trance like feeling and the slightest change is then amplified.

This is the only album I have heard from them maybe I should give those others a try.

7 equals good, good is still a high praise these days isn't it?

I tried re-listening to this hoping I was in the right mindset for it, but I'm still not feeling it. It has some nice post-metal/blackgaze material but nothing that's out of the ordinary or mind-blowing, and it simply feels too long and gets too repetitive for it's own good.

Oh well not uncommon for me to have different tastes to most on here, at least Austin Lunn agrees with me

I don't have anything against it, not something that can really be compared against other 2024 releases because of its idea or 'rationale' per se. Nice meditative and background music.