Eleven Fingers

While the world of ambient music has produced some fairly amazing material (Fripp & Eno anyone?) it has also lead to a slew of lazy acts that release an underdeveloped album for every season. Ambient metal has many culprits in this department. Circle of Ouroborus stand guilty as charged for pumping out records at a breakneck speed, clearly opting for quantity over quality. Since 2006, the band has released nine LPs, seven EPs, seven splits and seven demos. That’s about five releases a year, for those of you counting at home.

One wonders if there is anything of quality in the whole lot of these recordings. A cursory examination of their prior works shows a number of muddy recordings composed of muted quasi-black metal riffs and echoic spoken vocals; slightly entrancing but ultimately innocuous.Their more recent releases have opted for more layered ambient sounds, loaded with watery keyboards and those same monotone vocals; even less entrancing and even more innocuous.

LP #9, Eleven Fingers lies in the later vein. The vocals shift between a somewhat punky shout that flirts with melody but never actually gets any. Occasionally a weak black metal snarl appears on the stage, without making much of an impact. That’s about the reach of the metallic dimensions of Eleven Fingers. Otherwise, this is a pure ambient recording. Well then, how does Eleven Fingers stand as an ambient recording? Like a finger painting next to a Monet. The keys have an extremely flat sound to them. It’s ethereal in the tritest possible way. They sound like the soundtrack to a Sega Genesis game—thin and cheap. Moreover, they don’t fit the vocals at all. The keys would work better for some goth rock band on a super tight budget. However, the keys clash terribly with the black metal screeches and half-hearted punk shouts.

To make matters worse the songs tend to drag on well past their welcome. The lethargic compositions feel much longer than their 6-8 minute range. The songs float on and on like a heartless lecture that seems to slow time down to a crawl. Finally, there is little diversity on the album. Most everything sounds about the same: dull vocals, unaffected keys and generic percussion. Only the dark, primitive “Staining the Paper to Create” breaks the monotony, opting for a darker tone and tribal percussion. While somewhat more engaging than the rest the album, “Staining the Paper…” is still a pretty uninteresting piece of music.

There isn’t much redeeming about the album. The cover is kind of cool, but it’s quite derivative of the Neurosis & Jarboe album cover. Otherwise this album is simultaneously catatonic and irritating. It’s like eating a dull meal where the ingredients still somehow manage to clash. Save your appetite for something better.

Originally written for Deafsparrow.com)