Roughly half of Urfaust's songs are ambient pieces, both of which have been curiously left off their compilation "Ritual Music for the True Clochard", and I guess that is because Urfaust fans are plebeian morons who can't enjoy music without a steady beat or vocals, or something? Well, granted, the second ambient piece "Zur Winter-Wanderschaft Verflucht" breaks their part of the split way the fuck up with its sparsity and horror movie soundtrack discordance without bridging the driving bitterness of "Der Halbtoten Dichters Schein-Existenz" and almost incessant melancholy of "Dämmert, Gelähmt Und Mit Scheinbar Erloschenem Geist" very well, so it might very well have been better left as the last track of their side or just omitted altogether. Especially considering more than half of track 4 is actually ambient music as well, so that makes Urfaust's side a turkey with alot of filling. The first song, however, is basically just Urfaust doing Urfaust with synths instead of guitars, such as they would do on their "Drei Rituale jenseits des Kosmos" EP. It actually serves as a much better expression of the inherent ghastliness of their black metal pieces than the horror movie soundtrack stuff.
Circle of Ouroborus work as a pretty weird contrast with Urfaust, since while the latter is kind of like a decrepit vessel set in its course of conveying immaterial torture of spirits beset with regrets, CoO are more like some immortal idiot savant, possessing simple but eternal wisdom that it has gathered in it's reclusive wanderings around the forests of the world, when it's not playing pranks on human folks of which it otherwise cares nothing about. Translating this amorphization of their music into actual description of it, CoO are, as ever, charming in their wonkyness. Repeated listenings reveal that underneath their deceptive simplicity are legitimately well put together songs that, unlike Urfaust does here, aren't padded out with inappropriate atmospheres and fillers. There are some acoustic pieces that actually bridge the rest of the songs incredibly well, and the pseudo-melodic vocals are not only appropriate to the music once you get used to them, they are necessary. So are the lo-fi recording techniques. So is everything. They do everything right.
I set out to write this review liking the Urfaust side better, because at least half of their music here is fucking great, but I then realized that CoO is more well rounded. Sometimes the idiot savant just knows better.
link dead
urfustusurutrus listen
circlop oopf oruiroborrss listen
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