JOHANN WOLFGANG POZOJ — Birth of Pozoj (Trilogy Part 1) (review)

JOHANN WOLFGANG POZOJ — Birth of Pozoj (Trilogy Part 1) album cover Album · 2011 · Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
2.5/5 ·
UMUR
"Birth of Pozoj (Trilogy Part 1)" is a completely re-arranged and re-recorded version of Croatian experimental extreme metal act Johann Wolfgang Pozoj´s debut full-length studio album "Birth of Pozoj (2007)" and as the title suggests the first part of a triology. The album was released in May 2011 by Code666. Both part one and two ("Escape of Pozoj (2009)") were originally independently released in very limited number of copies but the band were picked up by Italian label Code666 and offered a deal to re-arrange and re-record the first two albums and of course also to release the third part of the triology when that is finished.

The music on "Birth of Pozoj (Trilogy Part 1)" is rooted in black metal, but the music is by no means "regular" sounding black metal. There are as many progressive, ambient, atmospheric and goth rock/ metal (I´m detecting a Moonspell influence here) elements in the music as there are black metal elements. The vocals are occassionally raspy and raw but lead vocalist Ivan Borcic also whispers, talks and sings using a clean voice.

"Birth of Pozoj (Trilogy Part 1)" only features two tracks but they are respectively 33:51 and 20:45 minutes long and not surprisingly progressive in structure. Some parts seem to be repeated but not many and the two tracks very much feel like developing tracks rather than a bunch of shorter tracks put together to form longer tracks, which isn´t an unusual way of composing longer tracks. That ends up being both an intriguing feature but also an issue as very few of the sections are memorable and too many sections become repetitive or simply overstay their welcome. I miss intense emotions, power and conviction. The band obviously have many great ideas but they are simply not executed very well.

...much has to do with a rather tame and powerless sound production though. I´m a bit amazed that the band went through all that work to re-arrange and re-record the album and ended up with a production that honestly sounds a bit amateurish. Call it organic and authentic but I´m not impressed. Add to that the fact that at least one of the guitars are out of tune, this just comes off as sloppy.

So all in all there are several features on "Birth of Pozoj (Trilogy Part 1)" that I´m not too happy about, and I can´t say it´s an album I´ll take out very often for listening pleasure. Viewed upon objectively it´s not a complete failure though and especially the band´s adventurous approach to songwriting is something I appreciate. Before I´m hooked they will need to write more memorable material, tune their guitars and pursuade Code666 to pay for a better sound production for their next album. A 2.5 star rating is warranted.
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