ÖXXÖ XÖÖX (2) — + (The Opening of the Hypercube) (review)

ÖXXÖ XÖÖX (2) — + (The Opening of the Hypercube) album cover

Album · 2024 · Avant-garde Metal

4/5 · 2024-09-11
siLLy puPPy

The umlaut-rich avant-metal band from France returns with another electrifying dose of surreality in the form of yet another musical mind fuck which highlights this freakfest’s love of symbols with a new album titled simply +. However it just became apparent on the Bandcamp page that these abstruse albums now have secondary titles with this one adopting THE OPENING OF THE HYPERCUBE thus putting more of a reasonable spotlight on what the hell this band is all about which upon first exposure for listeners it will come off as weirdness for its own sake. And they wouldn’t be completely wrong. Forged with a slight sense of over-the-top haughtiness, this trio of Laurent Lunoir aka ÖXXÖ XÖÖX (all instruments, lead vocals), Laure Le Prunenec aka Rïcïnn (piano, guitars, female vocals) and Isarnos (drums) delivers another purposeful difficult music session steeped with the same mix of doom metal, gothic rock, electronica and Igorrr related unorthodoxies due to the fact the weirdo outsider musician Igorrr actually contributes with the programming.

Listening to an ÖXXÖ XÖÖX is like stepping into a music festival in a parallel dimension where nothing is familiar and everything is completely alienating with symbolism and musical motifs that seem like they are simply stitched together randomly like interlocking pieces of a jigsaw puzzle with no discernible context or purpose but that’s really exactly the point of this style of weirdo music, namely to engage in the rare act of total escapism despite the somewhat familiar elements of doom metal, gothic rock and what sounds like tribal ritual sacrifice music. If discerning any particular ÖXXÖ XÖÖX proves difficult then finding the differences between albums can prove to be even more challenging as poetry in some ancient alien language will tend to sound the same no matter what the actual meaning conveys thus highlighting the paradox of such musical extravagances. The fact is that ÖXXÖ XÖÖX succeeds all too well in its alienating effect and seems to take pride in taking an extreme calculated approach to ensure that everything is as wildly avant-garde and bizarrely impenetrable as possible.

Reminding vaguely of the Slovenian / Italian act Devil Doll, ÖXXÖ XÖÖX showcases an equal dose of flamboyance only rather than nurturing musical familiarities structured in unorthodox ways, this band tackles bizarre soundscapes that progress in strange ways that when i have played for friends literally freaked them out! So what’s new on +? Well actually i must say that this is ÖXXÖ XÖÖX’s most accessible album yet, although that is in relative terms of what they have presented on their previous three albums of course. This is still totally out there although one can be comforted that the band’s goal is to liberate the soul with their strange eclectic musical stew. Now how’s that for far fetched? LOL. After all according to the band: ÖXXÖ XÖÖX mixes the symbols of yin and yang/ouroboros/binary coded decimal system (0110 = 6 and 1001 = 9). Öxxö Xööx therefore means 69, symbolizing the desire for sublimation: transforming the 6 into 9 (find again the original light)! OK now :)

OK, back to the album. Yes, indeed + is crafted with more familiar styles of melodic touches this time around with melodic guitar riffs, licks and classically infused keyboard parts amongst the bizarre menagerie of gothic vocal harmonies and hairpin turns into unrelated musical motifs. This is the ultimate ADD type of music where there’s really no goal other than present various scattered melodies and ideas that are thrown against the wall like spaghetti. The art of indeterminacy is fully intertwined into this bizarre band’s master plan just like random atoms clashing and banging against each other in a gaseous state. Despite the weirdness there is the subtle beauty this band exudes through its darkened brume of atmospheres and proggy zigzagging through labyrinthine compositions with freakier than average vocal weirdness as if Dracula joined the choir at a Cirque du Soleil performance.

As with every ÖXXÖ XÖÖX this is an exhausting affair if you actually want to focus on the music actively. It’s impossible to make heads or tails out of any real purpose here and the band has a propensity for making the longest albums possible that will fit onto a modern CD in the case of + that means a sprawling 80 minutes or an hour and twenty minutes of artistic excess sounding like a distorted journey through the very hypercube that is supposed to be a part of the indecipherable lyrical subject matter. All in all this album although a bit easier on the ears for those who need melodic elements may prove tolerable in small doses but probably won’t win over any new converts as this music is still so friggin’ freaky that even those of us who totally dig this kind of warped sound salad can only engage rarely as it is one of those types of bands that scratches the itch when you want to say screw it all and totally escape into a completely unfamiliar world of estrangement.

For some reason it’s cathartic to feel out of control because it puts the real world into perspective. So perhaps this Freudian head trip actually has some real purpose after all but remains as bizarre and divorced from the greater world of rock and metal despite any leanings towards slightly more melodic touches. Personally this appeals to me on an intellectual level if nothing else and although i’d go insane if this were part of my daily diet, this does offer the perfect escape hatch into planet mondo bizarro. While there are really no comparisons to this band, it will appeal to those who most love the musical weirdness of bands like Unexpect, Ethel Death, Igorrr, Jute Gyte, Dir En Grey, Thy Catalfalque, Devil Doll, Thought Industry, Ex Eye, Taal, Yawn, Q’uq’umatz, Perculate or even early Azure Emote but i personally find this band to exhibit a level of weirdness above and beyond the call of duty and blows away the competition. It’s actually quite admirable in how a band can create a uniform complete detachment from the entire musical world and exist in its own musical bubble.