Futurity and Human Depressions

I bought this album on the same day as Coroner’s “Mental Vortex” following a recommendation by the guy at the studio. I don’t usually listen to suggestions by these guys since quite often they mislead the customers to the point of absurdity (I thought I had grabbed the album of the German power metallers Mania once, listed as “Changing Times” (1989), only to find out a few months later that it actually was the Belgians Target’s “Master Project Genesis” (1988)), just to give one shining example of these folks’ complete lack of competence). However, in this particular case the guy probably made one of the best recommendations of his life, to my advantage. At the time I knew absolutely nothing about this act except that they were Dutch. The Dutch metal scene I largely associated with Pestilence (I had already gotten a hold of “Testimony of the Ancients” a few months back), partly with the thrashers Mandator whose two albums I had managed to dug out somehow; and with another thrash metal outfit, Vulture’s brilliant debut “Fatal Games”.

So Osiris belong to the technical/progressive thrash metal fraternity which was particularly big, both in terms of quality and quantity, in Holland, and logically appeared in the late-80’s when the demand for complexity and originality started growing. They joined the fray in 1989 with an excellent 4-track demo, “Inextricable Reversal”, which contained brilliant schizoid, surreal technical/progressive thrash with myriads of time and tempo-shifts and mazey intricate decisions in the best tradition of Sieges Even’s “Life Cycle” and Realm's "Suiciety" those two still serving as loose references. Only one track (“Mass Termination”) has found its way to the full-length reviewed here, to these ears the least deserving one. The big ambition on that same full-length is handsomely displayed by the larger-than-life 9-min opener “Futurity (Something to Think About)”, the supposed title-track, which not surprisingly meanders through ultimately weird structures and arrangements including several short ultra-fast, bordering on proto-death, passages this very eventful saga finished with a brilliant twisted section. One word for the vocals which are on the emotional clean, high-strung side recalling Alan Tecchio from Watchtower, the Dutchmen also using a very similar palitre of jarring riffs and abrupt time and tempo-changes akin to the Americans.

The aforementioned “Mass Termination” is a dynamic spastic thrasher the guys moshing hard on this one not forgetting about the more intricate, laid-back performance which still pales before the dominant intense, again death metal-laced barrage. The band really pull it off when they keep it shorter even on the choppy semi-balladic “Inextricable”. However, the lengthy opuses keep coming, and here is the 8.5-min “Out of Inspiration”, a spacey oblivious shredder which marches forward with sinister, also pretty bizarre at times, rhythms never leaving the mid-pace. The hard thrashing comes back with full force on “Inner Recession” which is stupendous technical thrash with creepy Coroner-esque riffage which will cause both “inner” and “outer recession” within the listener with its perplexing, not necessarily logical, developments among which one will notice another brutal deathy break. A masterpiece second to none, this composition can’t be beaten, but the guys soldier on producing the 10-min saga “Fallacy (the Asylum)” which begins in the ultimate doomy fashion before the band start thrashing like demented once again serving another portion of virtuous, labyrinthine technicality in the middle before more linear progressive metal arrangements settle in later occupying quite a bit of space, to these ears still for the better again bringing to mind Sieges Even’s mathematical puzzles. “Frozen Memory” closes the album with more outlandish thrashing plus great vocal exploits by the guy who displays his stranger, more alternative baritone to fit the much less ordinary musical cavalcade which stays within the mid-tempo parametres, but remains quite a challenge for the fan who may get lost in this maze of constantly overlapping, shifting riff-patterns.

In terms of complexity this album comes on the very top of the group of Dutch talents which also comprises auteurs like Sacrosanct, Decision D, Donor, Voices, Altered Moves Two, Rhadamantys, etc., and one really has to think hard to come up with a more elaborate rendition of our favourite thrash. As overall construction and precise execution this album also reminds of Deathrow’s “Deception Ignored” quite a bit; it’s just that the Germans are tighter and more compact not wasting precious riffage when they can do away with a more parsimonious stroke on the canvas. And this is probably the only flaw this album has: the Egyptian gods’ followers throw too much music at the listener, and the latter can’t help but be overwhelmed at some stage by the never-ending cannonade of amorphous, super-technical exploits which to some may sound quite confusing since they may not be able to follow the plot at times. Still, hats down to the guys for having so many original ideas which to the more trained ear would be a perennial delight to listen to.

It’s amazing that the band’s ideas hadn’t been depleted with this opus; just a few months later appeared the “Equivocal Quiescence” demo which contained the title-track and another staple for the guys gigantic opus (the nearly 8-min long “Something to Think About”). Outstanding musicianship is the name of the game again the title-track being a spellbinding speed/thrashing instrumental with a marvellous jazzy mid-break; the other one a really brain cell-consuming experience mutating in many guises among which the bass-driven jazzisms ala Atheist are particularly worth of note. Obviously these two numbers had been left out from the full-length which would have been a way over an hour recording with them included, and had been spawned by the same sweeping genius.

Genius which was exhibited very briefly again two years later under the name Circle of Emotions, a moniker which sheltered the whole Osiris line-up for the creation of one 4-track demo (“Plan B”). The music is engaging progressive power/thrash all the same, maybe simplified and more atmospheric with the clinical technical riffage toned down a few notches. This was a very short spell after which the band were done. The bass player Rene Bronwasser is alive and well, and continues with his infatuations in Egyptian Mythology with Stone in Egypt, a prominent player on the stoner/doom metal field with four full-lengths and one EP released in the new millennium. The others… the others are perhaps still musing over the execution of Plan C which should bring another tsunami of very complex, very progressive technicality to take care of all pretentious Dream Theater and Fates Warning wannabes on the scene.