OvO – Miasma
Noise Metal – Ravenna
The slap hurts even the more when you don’t expect to take it. We were cool at first. It was a Sunday evening at the Pavillons Sauvages in Toulouse. It was raining, it was cold. We were almost about to order an infusion at the bar! But…As soon as the doors were crossed, a buddy from Italy took us brutally into the flames of hell. Verbena was forgotten. Tuesday, Monday, Thursday, Sunday, who cares. We immediately brought out the flask. | By Polka B – Translated by Julie B.
To be a bit stylish, pen in hand and glasses at the tip of my nose, I could tell that OvO offers radical music skillfully orchestrated between the genres: noise, doom, drone, industrial sludge, peeping in places towards the music experimental.
Only, we didn’t experience it at all like that. In fact, any attempt at intellectualisation would risk putting us completely on the plate. The music of OvO is tribal, emotional, raw and relentless, their sound stirs the guts. It is not our brain that is mobilised but our senses as a whole.
We told you that after crossing the doors, a breath of high frequencies had contracted our eardrums.
By making our way, we discovered the people responsible for all this noise. On the left of the stage, a drummer in a calm olympian hut (Bruno) tackled a martial rhythm like a drummer motivating his troops before the battle..
On his face, aboriginal paintings reinforced the solemn aspect of the scene, under the airs of Maori ceremony. To her right, like a high priestess, the singer (Stefania) erupted occult incantations, in a ghostly voice supported by the distortion of riffs savagely plated on the neck of her guitar. Monstrous reverb, futuristic sounds straight out of an electronic drum, and epic hammering typed industrial music.
Minute after minute, the melodies mingled with extreme saturation. Built around hypnotic loops, the pieces of OvO wove their webs gently, trapping for good the souls of the spectators present in the room. It was quite strange.
While the screeching of the sound frequencies reached a level of decibels rarely reached in this room (that is to say), the overall atmosphere was rather in meditation.
A cathedral silence in the ambient brothel.
Some musically sensitive souls might have thought it gloomy, but Stefania maintained a bright smile throughout the concert.
Once housed in the “OvO capsule”, we had plenty of time for analysis. Loaded with sound texture, the compositions remained fairly minimalist. Abrupt at first, they took the time to wrap the listener to lead him into a collective trance, mimicking the construction of an electronic music set.
To finish this hour-long sound fresco, the duo sang the song “Miasma”. An apocalyptic waltz as funeral as it was freezing, having definitely convinced us of one thing: we absolutely had to buy this album.
Still a little groggy, we talked with Stefania and Bruno when we got the precious sesame. The OvOs have been touring for 20 years … and Miasma is none other than their ninth studio album! A fairly logical discovery, such a mastery of a sound universe so well defined with nothing left to hazard. We advise you to take a look at their discography, and (especially) to see them live!