Ophthalamia - A Journey in Darkness (1994)

My first and only experience with Sweden's Ophthalamia was about ten years or more ago when I picked up the, 'Nordic Metal' compilation and heard the band's cover of Mayhem's, 'Deathcrush.' I remember saying to myself back then that if I ever came across any of their releases I'd pick them up in a heartbeat. But I never did come across any. It wasn't until May of this year that I stumbled upon the bands debut, 'A Journey in Darkness' and got to hear first hand that I've been missing some interesting music.

In case you don't know Ophthalamia (no idea how to pronounce it either) is a fantasy world created by Tony Särkkä (AKA 'IT' the mastermind behind the band Abruptum) and all of the songs lyrics are about this realm of his, which is a nice break from all of the Tolkien stuff, though back in the day the Tolkien thing wasn't insanely popular just yet, anyway.

A Journey in Darkness featured the line-up of IT on guitars, Winter (AKA Benny Larsson of Edge of Sanity and Pan.Thy.Monium) handling the drums, Mourning (AKA Robert Ivarsson of Pan.Thy.Monium) playing bass and Shadow (AKA Jon Nödtveidt of Dissection) performing the vocals.

Although Ophthalamia has commonly been associated with the black metal genre due to it's participants the bands sound is in fact quite a bit distant from the traditional Scandinavian black metal sound of the early 90's. Musically A Journey in Darkness is a slow gloomy ride through IT's fantasy world that has tons of heavy doom riffs, which sound reminiscent of early Black Sabbath (at times). Throughout the entire album the music remains slow or mid-paced and never reaches the point of having raging blast beats or hastily picked tremelo riffs either. The album has an interesting vibe to it, which I could describe as being dark, mysterious, majestic and even slightly melancholic in places during the albums forty seven minute duration. In the end the band's only connection to black metal would be Shadow's vocals, which are excellent as expected as he displays a great deal of range from his usual rasped/growled style to using some whispered voices and even some cleanly sung parts. There's also the presence of some very brief female singing, though the booklet doesn't indicate whom she is.

I find it hard to pick favorites from this album due to its unorthodox nature and varied riffs and tempos, but the first two songs definitely stand out due to their epic and melodic nature and I also just love the ending of, 'Little Child of Light / Degradation of Holyness' since it's a total grooved out doomy head banging moment for sure.

In the end A Journey in Darkness is quite a pleasing release, though I've found that it takes time for it to grow on you, but once it does you'll find that it's truly worth your time. The original AvantGarde Music version is most likely out of print and going for some large bucks on eBay, but thankfully Peaceville Records recently released it, which should make it easier to hunt down.