OM - God is Good

Format: CD

Label & Cat.Number: Drag City DC404

Release Year: 2009

Note: fourth album by the minimal / drone / doom rock hypnotizers

Price (incl. 19% VAT): €14.50

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"Nichts hat sich verändert, ist man versucht zu denken, beim Hören des vierten OM-Albums. Dabei hat sich sogar eine ganze Menge getan: Mit Schlagzeuger Chris Hakius hat 2008 direkt das halbe Line-up das Duo verlassen (GRAILS-Drummer Emil Amos kam als Ersatz), OM haben zum zweiten Mal das Label gewechselt, sind von Southern Lord zu Drag City gegangen und erstmals hat sich Bassist und Sänger Al Cisneros (wie Hakius einst bei SLEEP) zwei Jahre Zeit mit einem neuen Album gelassen.
Davon abgesehen aber: nichts hat sich verändert. Wobei ... Mit „God Is Good“ scheint die Transformation von einer autark agierenden Rock-Rhythmusfraktion hin zu einer Art, nun ja, musikalischen Gebetsmühle endgültig abgeschlossen zu sein.
Trotz des Albumtitels ist zwar nicht davon auszugehen, dass Cisneros und Amos jetzt an ein Gott-Konstrukt glauben, die Struktur ihrer Musik nimmt aber zunehmend die Form religiöser Chantings an.
Dass das extrem basslastige Schlagzeug dabei Drone-Charakter hat und Cisneros’ Stimme zu den einlullendsten überhaupt gehört, unterstreicht das Hypnotische in OMs Musik nur noch. Auf der Bühne können OM zwar immer noch extrem laut werden – sind dann aber nicht weniger paralysierend – auf „God Is Good“ passiert das aber noch seltener als zuvor." [André Bohnensack, © by Ox-Fanzine / Ausgabe #86 (Oktober/November 2009]

"It's been years now -- just about two, judging from the sun. OM have done their time in the desert, and ever-changing, are returned. Today, they say, God is Good. Are you surprised? Perhaps you've haven't understood what OM was saying to you. But perhaps you felt something... It's true that the one way pursued by OM leads in many different directions. It is a mystic path. Songs come from innumerable sources, filtering through the external and the internal. OM albums are rituals, personal convictions transcripted into verse. Playing the music is visceral, emotional, a catharsis of soul and spirit. As the ghat liberates soul from body to the ultimate, so too do OM strive to disengage from the finite object of their objective mortal self to rest in the empty and timeless witness. And in doing so, they seek to release you as well. As ever, dynamic relationships and the slow building of mood are attenuations that shape the structures of God is Good. With careful microscopic increase, the energy grows through the four songs, leading towards moments that one could interpret...revelation? Oblivion? Awakening? Since 2004, OM have burned their name into the annals, trolled the fertile crescent, faithfully made more out of what little was put into their hands, forged three full-length albums from white-hot evaluations of the infinite. The duo that is OM is composed of bass and drums and whatever else comes into their mind that will serve the song and do it justice. Al Cisneros has been pursuing the pure note as OM (and previously with Sleep) for many years now, but this is the first OM record to feature the battery of Emil Amos, who replaces Chris Haikus in the chair. You can go to the shelf and study it: there are comparative religions, philosophy, metaphysics, mythology, and history. Turn around, and there is OM. Their vibrations of the philosophical and the physical are meant to move you. Believe." [label info]

www.dragcity.com