Band:	Odz Manouk
Album:	Ծ​ո​ւ​ռ (Tzurr)
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	July 2023

01. Ամբերդ (Amberd)
02. Դյուցազնամարտ (Dyutsaznamart)
03. Բոսորագազան (Bosoragazan)
04. Օձազունք (Odzazunq)
05. Անուլիոս (Anulios)

...but two albums.

Black metal has a penchant for kvltness, for bands that seem to have grappled a very specific point in time but with enough dust on them having laid since that it is only the initiated that get to revel in what was made. That is a very pompous and probably semantically incorrect way of saying it's cool in black metal to like bands that aren't necessarily household names but have gained some underground notoriety. One of those has been the Rhinocervs label/collective that was comprised of A. of Absum, Glossolalia, and Tukaaria , and Yagian of Odz Manouk. The period between 2008 and 2013 saw a great number of releases by these bands and associated side projects, even anonymous uncredited records by the label. Odz Manouk itself, other than participation on a number of VA compilations, only released one album proper, a self-titled one in 2010, one that has rightfully reached a similar kvlt status akin to something like Murmuüre or Woods Of Belial.

The decade since the collective's last works in 2013 was very quiet, with the larger related Black Twilight Circle garnering a lot more of the underground's attention since. It was very surprising to suddenly see a revival of it with a new VA compilation, and among a bunch of unfamiliar yet nonetheless intriguing names also laid Odz Manouk. And then, two new albums. Just like that. I know I am making it quite a challenge for me to review both of these albums separately, even if they're still a discernable difference between the two, but there's something about this that still feels surreal. So here we have Ծուռ (aka Tzurr), the shortest of the bunch, at 36 minutes of runtime.

Tzurr is the less straight-forward of the two, perhaps best exemplified by the tracklisting and album title being in both Armenian and English. The black metal here is a bit more chaotic and dissonant, at times even cacophonous, but without losing the sense of melody in the riffing and the synth lines that do create the swirling hypnotic atmosphere. The production is still very dense and murky, but there have been some developments to make it slightly clearer without losing that denseness and its suffocating quality. There's quite some repetition used towards creating said sense of atmosphere, especially prevalent in the maddening closer, but they're often interrupted by dazzlingly intricate guitar melodies to create a balance between how directly inhospitable it feels and how it still manages to create a very immersive experience.



But if you want something even more direct...