ORDOS ~ FIRE .... review

Back in the good old days when there were still weekly British music papers, like The New Musical Express, Melody Maker and Sounds we Brits would more or less get to know months, sometimes even years, in advance that one of our favourite bands or artists were in the studio working on a new release, these days though things are a bit different and unless you are on a bands (or their PR's) mailing list or are constantly perusing their socials then prior knowledge of a release for the ordinary fan is almost non-existent, well at least until a few days before said release drops. Why are we telling you this you may ask... well in July of last year (2024), on a whim. Desert Psychlist decided to check out the Facebook page of Swedish sludge/stoner/doom combo Ordos, the reason we did this was because having not heard much from the band since the release of their third album "The End" we were truly worried that they might have called it a day, something that would have been quite devastating for us at the Psychlist as we have been championing this band since stumbling across their self titled debut back in 2013. What we found on their FB page was firstly that the band were still active and secondly, much to our pleasure, the news that they were working on a fourth album, facts that we would not have known had we not delved into their socials. That album, "Fire", has now dropped and it is all and a whole lot more of everything we have come to expect from these Uppsala natives.

Opening number "There is More" starts restrained and atmospheric with Magnus Stenqvist's eerie toned guitar textures accompanying a fairly lilting Emil Johansson vocal asking questions like "is this all" and "is this everything you've been searching for" with that last line the signal for bassist Martin Hagnell and drummer Max Sundberg to join the fray and take things into heavier climes, it is also the signal for Johansson to mix up those clean lilting tones with some of that distinctive throaty harshness that has become his trademark. Prog-metal and heavy psych fans should also also keep an ear out for the textures. tones and colours guitarist Stenqvist brings into play here, even injecting what sounds like a little jazz fusion into proceedings at one point. "Ferment" follows and sees Ordos hitting into one of those insidious and gnarly sludge/doom grooves we have all come to love them for, Johansson adding to the glorious mayhem with a vocal that mostly borders on feral but on occasions drops into a delicious deep croon. Maybe it is Sweden's Viking history, or its maybe its the stark and moody artwork gracing this album that is causing Desert Psychlist to constantly have images from writer director Robert Eggers "The Northman" movie running around in our heads while we listen to Ordos' "Fire". The most vivid of those images coming to our minds eye tend to be generated by the albums next song "Hell Has Come" a song with a thrumming stoner doomic dynamic that slowly increases in volume, intensity and depth as it progresses, a dynamic that is mirrored in its vocals which shift from clean and monastic to grainy, gritty and growly. If you have not seen "The Northman" do yourself a favour and go and see it and when you do make sure you have this song in your head when viewing the movie's iconic last fight scene. "IV" follows next and is a masterclass in how to blend dank atmospheric doom with elements of prog and sludge metal, the song throbs with malevolence and menace mainly due to Johansson's vocals which lean towards manic at times but also thanks to the thunderous and ever-shifting grooves Hagnell and Sundberg lay down beneath his vocals and the crunching riffage and textured motifs and solos Stenqvist weaves around them. Last song "Eyes of Fire" sits somewhere between a ballad and a lament in its initial stages, gentle arpeggios ringing out over shimmering percussion, but this is Ordos we are talking about so its not long before things start to get gnarly, both vocally and musically, and no one does gnarly better than Ordos as they prove when the crunching riffs and  thunderous drumming come in to support Johansson's throatier warblings, to be fair the song does return to the arpeggios and restrained percussion in its final moments but by then the listeners ears have already been fried to a crisp. 

Ordos are not the type of band to drop an album every other year and that is why when a new Ordos album lands it feels somewhat like an event, something to be celebrated and savoured until the band decide to grace our ears with something new. Hopefully that something new will not take the six years we have had to wait for "Fire" but if it does, and it is as powerful and thunderously brilliant as "Fire" has turned out to be, then you won't find many complaining.
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