Basically, this review of Obscure Sphinx’ new EP Emovere screamed for another writer, our connoisseur of everything Polish, the man who worked there for a some time and who knows the scene and the band quite well – Knut. And this EP is more than just its three songs and near 30 minutes, it is another sounding proof for the band’s reputation as one of the best progressive Post-Metal outfits out there anywhere!
Humble as Knut is, he would now remind me to focus on the record by the five-piece from Warsaw, the capital of Poland, so let’s do as he says!
Emovere opens with ”Scarcity Hunter”, a track whose gritty opening bass-line sounds like straight out of a Maghrebian Post-Apocalyptic movie and is closer to Messa than I saw at the beginning, but there is something about the tuning that resembles the sand flying across the dunes. Maybe there is even some “spice” flying across the endless sand plains and a Shai-Hulud waiting around the next bend. The drumming is so fine-scaled and delivers the eruptions with equal measures of sensitive gentleness and explosive power.
”As I stood upon the Shore” the second track of the record (and with 6 minutes also the shortest one) shows why many compare Zofia Fraś with Julie Christmas – her vocals move as easily as Julie’s from wonderful clean passages to enchanting spoken word parts and then to the highest, strongest screams that might tear down the walls of Jericho. By the way, the way her vocals blend with the progressive aspects might also be reason to compare her to Rolo Tomassi’s Eva Korman. There are passages in the middle of the third track, ”Nethergrove”, when it is not clear who is pushing who – the music the vocals or vice-versa. Both are so well intertwined and the crunchy bass-line dominates again, that this longest track (with 13 minutes) is not only a perfect ending for Emovere but also such a statement – this band has been at it for more than 16 years now and they start the new year with a feisty statement that there is no retirement in sight, but rather more to come and to expect from them.
I remember a little chat with Knut a few years back, when he mentioned the band and I was immediately immersed and mesmerized. So, in a way, this review an appraisal of his taste in music and – more important – a laudatio for the band’s latest masterpiece.
