Owdwyr – Receptor (The Instrumental Edition)
Owdwyr – Receptor (The Instrumental Edition)
Self-Released
Release Date: 20/11/24
Running Time: 21:08
Review by Dark Juan
Score: 243,321,432,155,326,473/10
A word, if you wouldn’t mind. It is well known that Dark Juan can be rabidly and childishly enthusiastic about many things. Normally it is alcohol-based, drinkable items that Dark Juan covets and waves his hands about for. But music also plays a massive role in what makes him giddier than a schoolgirl facing her first vodka and coke, or a young man about to disabuse himself in an ungentlemanly manner in front of the young lady (or indeed the young gentleman, or indeed anyone identifying as any other gender) who might have offered her/ his/ their favours for the first time in his experience. If you are regular readers of the nonsense Dark Juan purveys, you will no doubt remember that I was quite excited by the debut album from Owdwyr, last year. If you need to refresh your memories about the spluttering idiocy Owdwyr reduced me to, then this link will provide everything you need: https://www.ever-metal.com/2023/10/20/owdwyr-receptor/. In fact, it came perilously close to being my record of the year last year, being my second favourite release of the hundreds of records I listened to in 2023.
Suffice it to say, Dark Juan was absolutely useless for the rest of the day after listening to Owdwyr, as their music was simply too much to take, and I needed a long and quiet lie down in the dark to make some kind of sense of the incredibly complex, fiendishly difficult music this American trio play. The lie down lasted about three days, such was the prodigious power and ridiculous complexity of the music.
It was with some trepidation, then, that I seated myself before the microchip-powered engine of my mental destruction (being my computer, as it is now somewhat elderly and capricious and refuses to work ONLY when I actually want to do something) and unleashed the almighty Platter of Splatter ™ to play the new (sort of) release from Owdwyr, being as it is a recording in which the band have chosen the more outlandishly Proggy, or stupendously Neo-Classical, or just egregiously complex tunes from “Receptor” and have cunningly entitled it “Receptor (The Instrumental Edition)”. In the words of Paul Plumeri (guitars, composition and programming) himself:
“While I love LOVE Max’s vocals, they have so much girth that they take up quite a frequency range. We wanted to choose our most Proggy, layered tracks, and do a special instrumental mix and master so people could hear the rich tapestry of counterpoint and varied instrumentation.”
I had to quote that because I simply cannot type the word “girth” without dissolving into teenage giggles.
I still can’t. My eyes are watering, and I can’t breathe. It’s nearly as funny as saying “pigeon nipples”.
Pigeon nipples.
Girth.
Girthy pigeon nipples.
Pigeon’s girthy nipples.
Oh my god, I am CRYING! Hahahahahahahahahahahaha…
I’m a child.
Yes. Now I have composed myself and I am no longer behaving like an eight-year-old schoolchild, and Mrs Dark Juan has given me a stern telling off; Owdwyr have reworked the more complex compositions from “Receptor” and turned them into a virtuoso musical tour-de-force that kicks the living shit out of the likes of Tool and Meshuggah for balls to the wall speed and big-brained, massive compositions that incorporate the intricacies of Neo-Classical, the sheer complexity of Jazz and the power of Death Metal, and combine them into the kind of musical juggernaut that rarely sees the light of day. Everything from chamber piano through to entire orchestras enhance the original compositions on this revisit to the hypertechnical hellscape that is the music of Owdwyr – ‘The Sputtering Torch’ could be part of the soundtrack of a film (movie for our cousins over the pond) that was based on a dancer dragged to Hell, where the Devil punished her by having her dance herself to death as a result of a crime she had committed! Gentle passages combine with beyond lightspeed Metal for a piece of music that blends Neo-Classicism with Technical Death Metal, the strings of an orchestra sweeping magnificently behind the guitars and fractured, multifaceted drum patterns, the poor woman pirouetting ever faster, her balletic moves becoming ever more desperate as her strength ebbs with fatigue, and screaming blades come ever closer to her every time her effort flags… grand jetés and jetés en tournant becoming ever more laboured and her natural grace slowly disappearing as lactic acid builds in her muscles and her movements become slower and fatigue makes her tremble, but she must continue despite increasing tempos and ever more complicated counterpoints, Lucifer watching closely with burning eyes as the sweat flies from her brow and she shakes with effort as she holds a pose en pointe, her ankles and toes shrieking agony as the sweat stings her eyes and her joints start to swell from overexertion and her flawless grace gives way to trembling exhaustion…
Yes, the world of Dark Juan’s imagination is a sadistic, blood-splashed nightmare and the music of Owdwyr is not making it any more pleasant. This deep dive into the complexities of a band whose debut was one of the most staggering things I have ever heard is an essential purchase if you just want to sink into a universe where intricate and challenging music is the norm. For that is what Owdwyr’s music is. It is a thing of extraordinary beauty that has been fractured beyond all recognition. It has been mutilated and deformed and changed in baths of scalding water and non-Euclidian geometries and hopped up on so many performance enhancing drugs that its nervous system operates at a level of which no mere unmodified human would…
And that is both the joy and the curse of Owdwyr. Dark Juan adores their music to the point of a restraining order needing to be issued. However, their incredible musical chops, arrangement skills and abilities on their instruments might alienate the sort of Metal fan that enjoys paeans to beer, sex and riding motorcycles and simplistic riffing. However, for the listener of a more exploratory bent, the broken, spasmodic beauty of Owdwyr will charm and astonish. I guarantee it.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System is a little conflicted. You see, it has rules about reissues (which it has broken before, to be fair) and this release technically qualifies as one. BUT, and it’s a big fucking but as well, it is one that I really wanted to hear with all my heart and soul and the band has fucking DELIVERED once again. Sod it, 243,321,432,155,326,473/10!
TRACKLISTING:
01. Praefatio / The Liminal Carapace
02. Ein
03. Supplicant
04. Reverie
05. Pitchtongue Vesper
06. The Sputtering Torch
LINE-UP:
Paul Plumeri Jr. – Guitars, composition, and programming
Chris Williams – Bass
Max Lichtman – Vocals and Lyrics (although, being an instrumental record, he is somewhat underutilised here!)
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.