Unveiling the Shadow World

0 X í S T is possibly the clumsiest band name in Finnish history. Yes, it's supposed to be pronounced "Zero Exist", but it still manages to make the band's name practically impossible to spread by literal word-of-mouth. And that's a pity, because 0 X í S T is not a bad band.

The music on Unveiling the Shadow World is doomy, in the sense that it's low-tempo, crushingly heavy, and depressed. But to define it doom metal alone would be a disservice to the band, and a bit misleading. While the later full-length album Nil might be a more varied package, at moments almost sounding like UK's own death-doom masters Esoteric, and occasionally reaching higher tempos and more flowing musical visions, too, Unveiling the Shadow World has a bleak, depressed mood throughout it's 23 minutes of length. The bleak mood, for once, gives some credibility to the elusive and universally detested "dark" tag in the genre definition of the music.

Indeed, the atmosphere on this EP somehow manages to avoid sounding like just another doom release. There's something different about the songs, and while they could, looking at the individual components, be described as death-doom or just depressive doom, there is more to them.

Unveiling the Shadow World sometimes feels like a huge machine, a hulking steel thing, walking slowly across the scenery, crushing smaller things under its huge metal legs with the crushing rhythm guitar. It's been built as a choppy, mechanical, and extremely heavy entity, and among all the things ever labelled as "doom", it's the most headbangable thing ever, due to its hard-hitting, percussive guitars.

As a technical performance, the EP is impeccable. The heavy crushing rhythmic pounding is countered by cleanish melodic lead guitars and a grunting growl, and there's nothing to complain, neither in the musicianship, nor in the production. The production suits the slow heaviness, and provides the contrast between the crushing bassy bottom and the beauty of the melodic guitarwork. It's wonderful for this EP, and with crystal clear fidelity. Nothing is hidden, and when played on a decent stereo set, it actually manages to make the lower register suffocatingly heavy. Likable, in other words.

Unveiling the Shadow World is a weird little release from a weird little band. It is mostly doom metal, but with an intriguing little twist, and a feel of its own. It's also very promising; even if it fails to impress quite enough to warrant many repeated plays or even a frequent spot on the playlist, it still manages to awaken interest in the Band with the Impossible Name. They are very likely worth the time to check their new works every once in a while.