Somewhat amazingly, Ov Hollowness is the result of just one guy, Canadian Mark R. who started down this road in 2009. He released his first demo, and then an album, both in 2010 and released the follow-up in 2011. That’s quite a lot of work for one person, especially as there is a lot of music here. Some atmospheric black metal bands rely on a lot of keyboards, but Mark has worked on creating a full band sound. I’m not 100% convinced that the drums are ‘real’, but the cymbals certainly are while vocally he combines both ‘clean’ and ‘raw’ to great effect. This is a pounding album which is much more Emperor than Burzum, but contains a lot of the atmosphere of the latter.
It is a very cold, indeed bleak, album that has much more going for it than most of the genre. I had played the album a few times before I got to the press release and I was blown away to discover that the band that I thought existed actually doesn’t as there is no way that this comes across as a solo effort. In fact, to my ears it is one of the finest black metal albums I have come across, whatever the sub genre (or should that be sub sub genre?), and one that I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys this style of music. There is a real edge and rawness that cry out desolation and torture and while it is a long way from Sweden it has obviously been heavily influenced by that country. More than just atmospheric, Ov Hollowness is like a controlled chaos of melancholic sounds while keeping intact some of the aggression of black metal.
http://www.auralmusic.com/
