Omega Severer

I was simply smitten with awe when I first came across Dvne, respectively Asheran. I never heard anything even remotely close to what these guys are doing. Dvne is simply put, a powerhouse of extremely apt musicians who decided that doing straight up just one thing won’t do. Across Asheran, we have been acquainted with a heavily progressive approach to what is basically a mix of post-metal, post-rock, stoner rock, sludge metal, and even some doom influences are being thrown around.

I know how this blend looks like on paper: taking the absolute slowest corners from rock and metal and combining them. It looks like it can be either amazing or straight up terrible. If you haven’t heard Dvne before, let me assure you that it is definitely unexpectedly amazing. Asheran is an outstanding sophomore full-length and while we didn’t get the follow-up we were looking for, Omega Severer is pretty damn great.

Omega Severer clocks in at a modest seventeen and a half minutes, however its contents are anything but brief. It is comprised of the title track, “Omega Severer”, and an older song from the Aurora Majesty EP, “Of Blade and Carapace”, which got a pretty neat uplift. The song underwent some minor tweaks and it sounds so much better than how it did in its original incarnation, feeling like they’re finally giving it the justice it deserves. It also makes a great pairing with “Omega Severer”.

“Omega Severer” is a ten-minute epic and through its ingenious structure it manages to pass through a vast selection of musical terrain. Together with the revamped “Of Blade and Carapace”, it succeeds in distilling the power and essence of an entire album’s worth of music. There is quite simply not even one moment that feels out of place, or redundant for that matter. Every little increment of sound is meticulously mapped and articulated, similarly to how things went down on Asheran. When I say that “Omega Severer” is an epic, I mean that. It captures a lot of the moods and the musical elements that basically make up the core of a record, albeit on a small-time scale. The production of the EP is also exactly as you would expect it, nothing short of sterling. It is a fully appropriate way of voicing and contouring all of the things that are going on.

All in all, Omega Severer shows us that Dvne continue to make steps forward within their craft. There’s something refined about what I’m hearing here and I’m quite certain that we’ll see all of this taken another step forward as soon as the next full-length will be made. I would think it’s implied at this point, but just to be on the safe side, make sure to check out Omega Severer and of course the rest of Dvne‘s material. It’s wholly worth your time!

originally published at: https://everythingisnoise.net/reviews/dvne-omega-severer/

Dvne's full-length debut is now several years behind us and for as creamy as it was in all its prog-sludge glory, the band have certainly waited a while to drop some kind of follow-up. That's not necessarily a bad thing but I've been eagerly awaiting more from Dvne for what feels like forever. The wait is thankfully over but is it a worthy successor to Asheran? Is this new EP worth your time? Short answer is: It's good but sadly I'm left wanting just little more than Omega Severer provides.

The production and mixing of these tracks is solid but the guitars occasionally feel slightly flat. It's serviceable but maybe too compressed for my tastes. As I'll mention later, the band play some amazing crescendos and play with the dynamics of their music a lot, which is certainly welcome but I don't think this production job does the song writing any favours. There's just not quite enough difference between the quiet and loud passages for there to be as big an impact as I think Dvne wanted me to feel. All and all though, I certainly don't hate it, the vocals especially stand out to me as .

Both tracks are distinctive, doomy affairs, sadly though they ditch some of the eastern-influences from Asheran. Since I really enjoyed the atmosphere that created on the previous album, I'm a little disappointed but Dvne's song-writing ability is as strong as ever. Not only does this album have riffs aplenty, the song structure is beautiful too. I'd favourably compare some of what Dvne are doing here to early Mastodon (in some places I even think they one-up them) though Dvne always feel like they're doing something that's totally their own. Even next to Asheran, I'd say Omega Severer does a good job of sounding distinctive.

For a slightly more detailed breakdown, the first track Omega Severer opens with a tasty lick and some surprisingly good clean vocals that quickly give way to a way more intense and sludgy passage. From there the song just keeps developing, increasingly playing more on Dvne's purposeful use of dynamics. By the end of this track, I was hooked on the band again. The next track Of Blade and Carapace certainly caught my eye right out of the gate with a riff that could have come straight out of a Motorhead or High on Fire song. From there though, I feel some of the weight they established early on gets discarded for a slightly proggy interlude I just wasn't a fan of. The first solo certainly brought me back on board but I was a little disappointed the band didn't decide to go all out sludge to close this effort off. That being said, there's nothing really all that wrong with Of Blade and Carapace and I get the distinct feeling this is a "me problem" more than a "band problem".

All said, I had a good time with this release. It didn't quite scratch my itch for the band's music but I'm certainly anticipating a full-length follow-up.