Odium, oddly enough was one of the first black metal bands I discovered and seriously enjoyed. It’s odd because Odium only produced one album in 1998, and even through that album they didn’t become overly huge in the scene, yet through my endless internet searching years ago I came across the band and this album. So you could say this album (amongst a few others) will always have a nostalgic remembrance for me.
The band in a way could be considered a warm up band for Demariel and Sechtdaemon who in the same year released the first demo from Myrkskog. Odium’s music was in a brutal symphonic black metal style, and despite the ludicrously evil (stupid) looking photos in the booklet and one of the members being named Bastadon, ‘The Sad Realm of the Stars’ is a rather admirable album.
The band’s style doesn’t float to far away from the Limbonic Art sound and interestingly they were also signed to the same label and LA’s Morfeus handled the albums artwork too. The guitar work is mostly a raw undecipherable mess of bedlam, and the percussion is overly loud and brutal, however it’s the synths that really make this band gripping. The synths bare a sort of lunar cosmos type of sound, and dare I say it has a relatively beautiful dreamy sort of characteristic to it at times. Lastly Sechtdaemon handles the vocal duties and his screams are piercing abrasive tortured cries somewhat similar to his early work with Myrkskog.
Although probably not the most weighty album in black metal history, Odium’s one and only album is at least for me an agreeable and mystic flight through the darkest parts of the universe. Check this album out, this sucker rocks!
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