Rating: 8.4

Country: Spain

Release Date: 2006

Record Label: Southern Lord/ Alone Records

Track list:
1. Geryon’s Throne
2. Arrodillate Ante La Madera y La Piedra
3. Oficio de Tinieblas
4. El Lamento del Cabrón
5. Genocide (Venom Cover)

Band Website: Orthodox

Orthodox - Gran Poder

Line up: Unknown

It all seems like old hat now- a triumvirate of doom-mongering aspirants clad in clerical garb, doling out austere dirges of the most funereal variety. Indeed, Orthodox bear all the hallmarks of post-O'Malley ostentation, but lest you dismiss this lot as another troupe of pO)))-faced upstarts, be advised that there is enough depth and density in here to eclipse any perceivable gimmickry. Conceptually, the band smacks of both novelty and triteness, tapping a spiritual vein well-bled by countrymen Great Coven, Eight Hands For Kali and Warchetype, siphoning their despotic elegies through a severity characteristic of the Spanish Inquisition.

Aesthetically, Orthodox quaff deeply from the reservoir of Pike, Cisneros and Hakius, hewing and hemming frayed fragments of Dopesmoker and Holy Mountain to form a taut, claustrophobic, remorselessly severe record that is simultaneously perplexing and punishing. Parallels might be drawn to Georgian contemporaries Zoroaster, though Orthodox place greater emphasis on martial discipline and ascetic sparseness than their Stateside sonic brethren. There is a definite streak of Torquemada-esque sadism to this recording, as well as an unrelenting, absolute abstemiousness that is entirely stripped of extraneous fat. Riffs excavate gaping crevasses of sound as the listener is ushered through a ritual of self-immolation and self-abasement, a meditative ceremony where the ego is sublimated through torturous trials of the flesh. Trying as some of these hymnals can be, bare as they are of “progression” or ornamentation, Orthodox never really veer into funeral doom territory, and rich rewards can be reaped by the exceptionally devout- bouts of silence and drone escalate into a scintillating, almost Bacchanalian burst of frenzy at the conclusion of “Geryon's Throne”, an uncharacteristic looseness slithers insidiously in the midst of “Arrodillate Ante La Madera y La Piedra”, and a seething interpretation of “Genocide” provides an awkward, yet satisfying conclusion to these monomaniacal litanies. Of special interest is the labyrinthine, cavernous production, a morass of quaking, knell-like low-end, spectral, unearthly vocal reverb and pitilessly dense percussion.

Repetitious? Certainly. Yet, there is a fascinating, confoundingly mesmeric quality to this album that defies my better judgment. I have embarked on this masochistic spiritual odyssey countless times now, and urge you to do the same.

July 3rd, 2007