We were pretty worn down from funeral doom in the past year, like seriously yo, took about two or three releases to pull out the noose. When shit's played this slow it's difficult to pull any substance out of it, but Norway's Omit has proven the genre can be quite successful if written by the right musicians. Repose represents the band's first release and full-length, which is on two discs because of how incredibly long it is, and that's finally, for once, not a bad thing. If you got enough funeral doom and figured it was dead, buried, and then buried over again with a Super Walmart, forget it. Repose is pure beauty, it will pull at the strings of the more classically minded of us out there, featuring real instruments instead of keyboards, everything from violins to cellos to chimes. And the singing, phew, fug that deep roaring crap, this chick's got throat. Not that kind you bastards...
Repose is one honking slab of marble cast down to create a mausoleum that would have made Mausolus' wife whimper and kill herself before even writing up the plans. Seriously, each track runs at least fourteen minutes long and there are six of them! The guitars rot into piles of ammonia-stench, human-decay muck when they need to, otherwise they provide a seriously haunting backdrop for the symphonic quality of their music. Cecilie's vocals are delivered clean, but in an operatic style with an incredible range of tones. This girl goes up and down scales like you and I take a breath without thinking, and it's simply so damn beautiful that the tough, extreme manliness in us has nothing else to say but. And then we have to bow down and put a couple of flowers on the grave. This is the kind of music that makes you want to pull out a paladin costume and walk around in it without feeling an ounce of embarrassment. Repose succeeds on so many levels there really isn't more to add. It's powerful, yet restrained, utilizing classical structure to accentuate the better qualities of funeral doom without wearing down your attention span.
If anything, Repose may even be a bit much for some listeners, and that's the only real complaint that could be given. At the same time, though, the only people who aren't going to get something out of it probably have no experience with actual music. It's hard to imagine what context you'd listen to it in, suffice to say it would turn any car ride to the supermarket into the next Dragonslayer film. Hell, that's even too tame for the mastery of this one. Some of the songs have a tendency to bleed a little into each other, but it's hardly noticeable if you have an ear for finer music, though it warrants saying that Omit would be even more massive if they could work the guitars some more to create more flow instead of backing the symphonic elements, possibly increasing tempo just a tad to show they can still work it with variety for kicks. Sometimes, this in fact does occur with wonderful effects sweeps, and endings like the final ten minutes or so of "Insolence" prove they know what they're doing, but using this more throughout the whole would take it to the next level. There's no doubt about it, Repose is funeral doom for the best of us, just beautiful, give this girl a kiss if you see her.
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Written by Arkus
