M.OMEN.T

Omen is one of the few Latin words migrated to the English language "as it is". It's a word which has a very negative sense, probably helped by the Hollywood filmography as "The Omen" was a famous movie about the Antichrist.

This negative meaning seems to be confirmed by the title of the first track, as "Maha Pralaya" in Indian literally means "great dissolving" referred to the Universe, but it's also the name of the time period between the Death of Brahma and the birth of a new Brahma. In this period tall the 14 realms are destroyed. In modern terms we may call it a Big Crunch followed by a Big Bang. The song starts with a crescendo of winds which explodes into a metal-ethnic piece with an electronic bass line, heavy percussions and acoustic traditional strings instruments similar to a a sitar and likely an electronic device as well. It's a quite usual track for Senmuth with its fusion of industrial and ethnic with the ambient side at a minimum, but it's a good track.

It fades into "In Illusion And Out Of Life". I can just try to interpret this title. If the Universe is destroyed where can be put what has to survive to the next cycle (pralaya)? It starts with few piano notes. It's a keyboard which echoes the notes played with windy sounds. It's unusually melodic for this artist , like the ambient mood which was almost absent in the first track has been put all into this one. A very nice one.

There's no transition but a sudden change with "Global Structuralismania". Considering that Valery Av is Russian and Russia is the home land of Vladimir Propp who is the father of the structuralism, I'm not surprised to find this term in a Senmuth's track title. How it fits into this powerful industrial metal I don't know. The ethnic element is still present but this one is one of the most metal oriented Senmuth's tracks of the current year. One good thing is that the usual "ethnic interruptions" are taken to a minimum and there aren't the useless changes of pitch which are often able to jeopardize a good track. The track ends with an electronic fade out.

"Living Disjointness" is a long powerful track. I won't try to interpret this track title, anyway. The sudden stop after 2:30 minutes is not the usual ethnic interlude. Of course the sitar like instrument is in evidence, but the melody is not properly Indian. With different sounds, more symphonic, this part of the track would have been excellent. At minute 5 there's a sort of trumpet and now the environment is really dark-ethnic. There are ethnic moments alternated to ambient music until minute 11 when the track becomes noisy and uptime to end in an ambient coda, quite psychedelic.

"End Of Mavantara" is the final confirmation of the end of the World: Ma(nu)vantara is the ancestor of the whole mankind (Manu), and his end means the end of mankind. The track is a coming back to the origins of the Senmuth project in temrs of "genre", but during the years most of the original weaknesses have been overcome. As result, this piece of Ethno-industrial music is pleasant enough. I can't associate the music with the track title and to the album's concept, but I haven't read the Veda and this may be the reason why I feel like I'm missing something, as this track doesn't create mental images in my head. Regardless my allucinations and sleepwalking, it's a good track.

One of the best releases of Senmuth's 2012, however I can't rate it with 4 stars because it's not an "essential" album, but it's surely a good one which would deserve to be rated at least a bit above many of the 2012 Senmuth's albums. 3.5 stars does mean nothing but gives the idea.