OREYEON ~ EQUATIONS FOR THE USELESS ..... review

 

Italy's Oreyeon have been on an upward trajectory ever since releasing their debut album "Builders of Cosmos" (released in 2016 under their original name of Orion) a collection of songs that mixed elements of spaced out heavy psych with elements of riff heavy doom and sludgy stoner metal. The band followed up their debut with "Ode To Oblivion" (2019) an album that saw a name change but was still very much in the same musical ball park as its predecessor only this time boasting a much more polished production and a far more mature approach to arrangement and song structure. This year La Spezia's favourite sons, Richard Silvaggio (bass/vocals); Andrea Ricci (guitar); Matteo Signanini (guitar) and Pietro Virgilio (drums), return with their third album ""Equations for the Useless" (Heavy Psych Sounds Records) and we at Desert Psychlist think its their best to date.

A droning effect that swells and swoops back and forth across the speakers introduces first track "It Was Time" accompanied by a crunching chord progression which is then joined by the drums, bass and second guitar in a thrumming doom-ic flavoured groove around which spacey prog-like guitar textures routinely drift in and out of. Almost as if in defiance of the heaviness that surrounds them the songs vocals bear a mellow clean  dynamic and sit partly buried in the mix a trick that adds much to the songs overall sonic impact and at times gives things an almost ethereal vibe. "Pazuzu" finds Silvaggio's vocals pushed a little further forward in the mix and possessing a touch of goth rock-like gravity in their execution, musically this song remains very much in the canon of doom but has so much more going on within it that to just tag it as doom would be doing the song a gross disservice. With title track "Equations for the Useless" Oreyeon lay down a musical milestone that marks just how far this band have come since their 2014 formation, the song begins in a wash of psychedelic textures and colours, similar in flavour to those Pink Floyd experimented with on their iconic psych masterpiece "Echoes", Silvaggio laying down a deep low bass line over which Ricci and Signanini layer all manor of superbly effective guitar trickery before the song suddenly erupts into a whirlwind of doom-ic heaviness and vocal majesty pushed hard by Virgilio's Bonham-esque drumming. "If" follows and sees Ricci and Signanini trading off raucous and strident riffs anchored to the earth by Silvaggio's booming bass and Virgilio's thundering percussion, the band the band adding an element of diversity to the song by subtly shifting time signatures and altering tempos throughout is duration while "Downward Spirals" finds the band melding lilting vocal melodies over a tsunami of complex stoner metal bluster tinted with elements of eloquently textured post-rock. The band close proceedings with "The Protocol" a strident and pummelling blend of prog metal and stoner rock/metal fuzziness which, like the albums opener, benefits from having Silvaggio's vocals set a little back in the mix and thus allowing the sheer forcefulness and power of the songs groove to be the songs main focus.

If you google the word "evolution" online one of the definitions you will come across is "the gradual development of something", that something in Oreyeon's case is their music. Oreyeon's first album sounded a little unpolished, untamed and a little raw but they had "something", it was a "something" you couldn't quite put your finger but it was there nonetheless. The bands next album saw that "something" growing in substance and showing glimpses of its full potential. Now with "Equations For The Useless" that "something" has become a fully fledged SOMETHING and its a SOMETHING you need to hear.

Check it out .... 

© 2022 Frazer Jones