Overmars / Born Again

Crucial Blast

Previously released through Appease Me (the label run by members of Blut Aus Nord), Born Again is the latest full-length from French sludge band Overmars, a single album-long piece that descends deep into themes of horror, self-immolation, and rebirth.  Overmars has already established their atmospheric, electronically tainted sludge-metal sound on splits with Donefor, Iscariote, Fuguee, and Icos as well as on their excellent 2005 album Affliction, Endocrine...Vertigo, but Born Again is something entirely new for the band. This 40-minute epic moves from pulverizing, industrial dirge blanketed with heavily textured layers of guitar to passages of dark, haunting ambience and bottom-heavy churn, while fearsome, guttural roars alternate with captivating female vocals. A magesterial finale stretches gloom-ridden, moody riffage, vaporous electronics, and dramatic singing over the song's last fifteen minutes, building into an earth-shaking crescendo. Immensely bleak and heavy, Born Again brings together elements of death metal, black metal, psychedelia, Godflesh's industrial pummel, and the crushing nihilism of Swans for an austere sound of their own, moving Overmars even further from the Neurosis comparisons garnered by their past releases. This special US edition has different packaging than the original Appease Me CD.

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