MANTRA HIROSHIMA

Brutal prog Omar take 2, this time being less direct and loud and instead favouring huge jams and an approach to songwriting that feels far more psychedelic and less noisy/disorienting. There's a total absence of vocals and anything to really latch onto for the most part, but it honestly works pretty well for the most part, especially with Zach Hill's drumming being just as frenetic and ridiculous as ever. One really fun aspect of this is that it almost sounds like an excuse for Omar to just go insane with all sorts of effects and production techniques and mashing them into this concise package, basically every song melding into this dissonant sludge with just enough repetition going on to make each track feel distinct, not in huge ways mind you, but certain chords being utilised a few times in quick succession, or in the case of the final track, a single note being repeatedly played for about 8 minutes before descending into madness. It's a hard album to talk about at great length because it really just feels like one monolithic freak out for half an hour, but all the little details to cement this as a somewhat more nuanced experience than is first expected makes it a really solid listen that separates it from a lot of the other albums in this vein I've heard that can often come off as an indistinct wall of nothing. Some pretty cool stuff as is often the case with Omar, I think that some ideas could've been expanded upon a bit more to make everything sound as amazing as the final track, but it was still pretty rewarding as is.