〇 - Entity review
| Band: | 〇 |
| Album: | Entity |
| Style: | Depressive black metal, Doom metal |
| Release date: | August 28, 2020 |
| A review by: | RaduP |
01. None
02. Reduced Beyond The Point Of Renewal
03. Grasping The Outer Hull Of The Tangible
04. (Em)Pathetic
05. Conjoin The Vacuous
06. An Idiosyncratic Mirage
At first I though "Huh, another O album already? We already got a pretty good one this year, what's the rush?", but then I realized exactly who this band actually is and my spine tingled.
Let me preface by saying that 〇 were really uninspired in their choice of a name, considering all the trials and tribulations I have to go through to find their album on Bandcamp. Not only did I mistake them for O and (0) (both bands who released great albums this year), but also it seems that they go by 0 on Bandcamp instead of the "〇" that we got. And the worst part is that a lot of search engines or music tagging engines consider '0' as "missing" or "unknown". Try searching for "0" here on MS, or try scrobbling artist 0 on last.fm, you'll have a really shitty time. And even if you go by the circular name that we got, you might end up with the wrong circle symbol instead of the "Ideographic numer zero symbol". Otherwise you'll end up with a similarly named ambient band. And it's not like Entity is such a specific name, so your best shot is usually searching for Null & Void, the name of their previous album. No luck. With that out of the way, holy shit! A new 〇 album!
Back when I was first getting into Icelandic black metal and basically devouring everything that was from there and had a black metal label, something about how enigmatic the name 〇 seemed drew me in, and with them only ever having one song (but a really long album-spanning one) was only adding more to the mystique. Sure, you pretty much already know who the members are, since the Icelandic scene is basically the same 10 guys in different combinations, but the bass player and especially the vocalist don't really play in anything else (the vocalist does guitars in Vonlaus, but it's not vocals so it doesn't count, and you have to understand just how important the vocals are for 〇). And Null & Void was just that fantastic to build upon both the popularity of the Icelandic scene at the time and mystique that their release created. And something about it felt like a one-off thing, so you can imagine my surprise when Entity came around.
With a lot of the Icelandic bands that spawned in the same period, their debut would bevery Deathspell Omega inspired and the follow-up that would take a lot of time would be more melodic. 〇 don't really come from the same mold, though they still follow the two-albums-a-long-time-apart rule. But Entity is cut from the same cloth as Null & Void, except you can tell that the band had six years to grow, but the despair they once felt is still there. You see, 〇 play a blend of depressive black metal and doom metal. Which would be enough to set them apart from the rest of the scene on its own, and is also the reason why I put so much emphasis on S.S.' vocals. The album is emotionally draining all by itself, but the vocals add so much more to how vulnerable it sounds. Like most DSBM, there are plenty of moments that are indeed over the top and you can feel S.S. not really being able to hold the right note, but somehow it never feels anything other than genuine, because even when a scream really hits it, you can tell that it feels authentic, and the same can be said about the cleaner wailing moments.
The band seem to have also worked out the normal song formula instead of just focusing on one 30-minutes-long behemoth, though it's not like the songs on Entity are that much shorter, with all of them in the 5-9 minute range. Though no longer part of the same song, the songs still flow quite nicely and this also clearly freed up the band from having to work out an extra batch of transitions between sections. Instead, the focus is on fleshing out each of the songs, and you can clearly hear the sound being much tighter this time around both performance- and production-wise. What the album loses in rawness it makes up for in genuine emotional baggage and resonant sections. So it's pretty much an improvement on all fronts.
And out of all Icelandic black metal bands, if even 〇 can come out with a sophomore, there's no excuse for Wormlust. The Skáphe collab doesn't count.
 | Written on 02.09.2020 by Doesn't matter that much to me if you agree with me, as long as you checked the album out. |
Comments
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Comments: 32
Visited by: 173 users
| Bad English Tage Westerlund Posts: 62060  |
When i was right about stupid band names... O o 0 () heje
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die"  I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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| musclassia Staff Posts: 7652  |
I was going to skip this because I didn't know if it was supposed to be good, but the band name was too irritating, but I suppose I should give this a go if it's as good as you say - although only because you've already embedded the bandcamp here
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| RaduP CertifiedHipster Staff Posts: 9037  |
Written by musclassia on 02.09.2020 at 15:20 I share your frustration, but yet I did listen to O based on your recommendation, and it was indeed worth it.
---- Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking One day there will be no heart at all?
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| angel. Evil Butterfly Posts: 2419  |
I actually find the band's NAME very inspiring ! I think it is a smart choice aesthetically and it is quite sublime when it matches with their music.
---- The Fangirl.
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| musclassia Staff Posts: 7652 |
Written by RaduP on 02.09.2020 at 15:22 Sadly, this one might be worth it too, it is actually rather good
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| Cynic Metalhead Ambrish Saxena Posts: 7574  |
Written by RaduP on 02.09.2020 at 15:22 Not even a single review(besides yours) around the web attached to this phenomenal piece of music that was ruthlessly underground. And over the top, it's THE Icelandic BLACK METAL band. I was immediately rolled over in and gave my first listen last night, and boy it hit me hard. Thank you folks for this incredible recommendation. I'll have to revisit again to see if I miss any prudent elements.
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| nikarg Staff Posts: 7367  |
Written by musclassia on 02.09.2020 at 15:20 Same here. I get annoyed when bands make things difficult for me. Anyway, it is good dsbm and as Radu says the vocals do stand out. However, there are times when it feels like there is not enough going on to keep my undivided attention. It is emotionally draining for sure.
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| Chobo_jokeR Posts: 441  |
The vocal delivery reminds me of Andavald. This is just a less hypnotic album and more focused on the doom aspect. It'll be making my list that's for sure. It's just a matter of deciding how high at this point. Excellent review for an excellent album.
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| angel. Evil Butterfly Posts: 2419 |
Written by nikarg on 05.09.2020 at 11:05 Honestly it's very a weird kind of statement about art. What's the difficulty about their name that you can't just google and they just pop up into your face and Bandcamp? and for that reason you undervalue all the other reasons and the aesthetic importance for the artist choosing a name for their creation?!! I always forget in what lethargic epoch we live, everything must be as fast as our food I get you! It's almost like Oh I get annoyed that Salo is such a difficult movie to watch!!!! And let's dismiss everything else about its artistic importance! I love the artists who make it really difficult for the audience to follow them, that's the point of art TO take them somewhere completely out of the Comfort Zone that society is already molding and then challenges their mindsets otherwise what's the point of art rather than being an entertaining sedating and confirming meaningless recreation of reality? Well we already have one version of that shit, Bring On something challenging hey you Artists! I appreciate it wholeheartedly!
---- The Fangirl.
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| RaduP CertifiedHipster Staff Posts: 9037 |
Written by angel. on 06.09.2020 at 14:20 I'd like to be able to find the album in my Bandcamp app without any artifices or having to know the name of the character they're using. Also Salo is pathetic.
---- Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking One day there will be no heart at all?
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| angel. Evil Butterfly Posts: 2419 |
Written by RaduP on 06.09.2020 at 14:24 Your lack of knowledge about the letter they're using won't make their choice of band's name anything even near to wrong or "artifacts" But Yeah the whole point of pouring time and creation into an album is that you can be able to find it as quickly as possible in your bandcamp the same as the whole point of Salo by a legendary director is that someone on an online forum call it "pathetic". Lethargic Epoch would definitely breed lethargic minds too. I got no high expectations.
---- The Fangirl.
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| RaduP CertifiedHipster Staff Posts: 9037 |
Written by angel. on 06.09.2020 at 14:34 Their choice of a band name isn't wrong. It's just annoying and inconsistent. It's 〇 here, 0 on Bandcamp, null on Spotify, and so on. Pasolini's best stuff was the movies he's written with/for Fellini. His work was pretty inconsistent anyway, and it's really surprising that he made Arabian Nights just one year before Salo. Salo being pathetic doesn't make him less of a legendary director.
---- Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking One day there will be no heart at all?
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| Troy Killjoy perfunctionist Staff Posts: 21306  |
Written by angel. on 06.09.2020 at 14:20 Art is subjective and interpretive, providing different reasons and purpose on a unique case-by-case basis. Your idea of what the point of art is is just one perspective: that of someone who believes complaints of a band difficult to search for is some sort of scathing indictment of human laziness. Certainly a takeaway, if a tad cynical, but not the only justification for said complaints. Art doesn't have to be anything, other than what it is.
---- "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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| musclassia Staff Posts: 7652 |
I mean I don't think the character they use as their band name and the difficulty it causes in finding the music using standard search engines really affects the impact their music has on a listener, except the fact that some people might give up and listen to something; there's an overwhelming abundance of black metal available in the world, and as decent as this album is, it's not that good as to make them unmissable. Some people might say the point of making art that is distributed for public release is at least partially for other people to listen to it, but maybe this band disagrees, in which case, good for them
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| Desha delicious dish Posts: 817  |
The music is pretty good. I was kinda hoping for some good dsbm, but it utterly fails at that. The vocals really do stick out as good (vital for dsbm in particular I'd say) and if they played more into a pure dsbm sound it could be pretty phenomenal. But those clean vocals and big riffs here and there kinda ruin that for me. Still pretty good and I can see myself spinning this a few times more this year.
---- You are the hammer, I am the nail building a house in the fire on the hill
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| RaduP CertifiedHipster Staff Posts: 9037 |
Written by Desha on 07.09.2020 at 23:11 Yeah, it's not really a DSBM album, sorry if I made it seem like it was.
---- Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking One day there will be no heart at all?
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| Desha delicious dish Posts: 817 |
Written by RaduP on 07.09.2020 at 23:13 Actually before I listened to it, I only read a few lines of the review. It's more the labelling here on MS (and on MA for that matter too) that gave me some high expectations haha. And it's not like it's entirely wrong, there is some good-great dsbm in here. That's kinda what makes it frustrating to me, cause I've been waiting for a real good new dsbm record. It's still overall good though like I said!
---- You are the hammer, I am the nail building a house in the fire on the hill
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| Auntie Sahar Drone Empress Posts: 5989  |
I can't fathom the concept of not engaging with a piece of music or being disinclined toward doing so purely because of the name the group chooses to go by. Seems like an incredibly shallow thing to pick at, but that's just my take I guess. Good review, quite enjoyed the debut from these guys and remember it stood out considerably from a lot of what the rest of the Icelandic scene was doing at the time for being a bit more minimalistic and ambient oriented. Hope this one stays to that while also exploring some new(ish) territory. Jamming soon 
---- I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go. ~ II. VII
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| musclassia Staff Posts: 7652 |
Written by Auntie Sahar on 10.09.2020 at 18:55 It's not about not being able to engage with the music, it's about finding it in the first place. There's so much music released worldwide that it's basically impossible to listen to it all, so if you start using characters that make it actively difficult to find your band, it shouldn't be surprising that it might stop some people hearing you. If you got a random rec from a friend to check out Imperial Triumphant, Oranssi Pazuzu and 〇 without any links, I imagine you'd find one of them a lot harder to find than the others, and it's not as if there's sufficient scarcity of music to incentivize trying to work out how to actually find 〇 without any more information. I had the same thing when I saw a recommendation to check out O on an AMG forum post; given that 'O', 'O band', 'O metal band' and 'O black metal band' don't direct you to the band O when googling, it's a lot harder to find them than it is a band name that you can actually search. Someone thankfully posted the album name lower in that thread, but if they hadn't, given that it was one recommendation in a forum thread with about 50 other album recommendations, I would've just given up. Thankfully we have a Bandcamp embed on this review for this band. Idk, people are willing to put in effort to find music from acts they already like, but if you're an unknown entity and make it difficult to find you, it shouldn't be a surprise when people don't find you, although maybe not having people actually listen to their music fits with the mysterious unknown persona they want to convey. Shallowness and practicality aren't synonyms; I'm happy enough to have listened to this album given that it's good, but I'm already struggling to find time to listen to everything I'm planning to, between new releases, review preparation and actually listening to music released earlier than 2020, so when bands put up barriers to hearing their music, whether it be band names or streaming accessibility (no spotify or bandcamp), I'm pretty inclined to focus my attention elsewhere unless there's a particular reason for me to crave hearing what they've released.
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| Auntie Sahar Drone Empress Posts: 5989 |
Written by musclassia on 12.09.2020 at 12:57 You'll have to forgive me then if I still don't see this as being as big an obstacle as you're making it out to be. All it means is that you might have to get a little more creative and specific with your choice of words on whatever search engine you're using, which would take a mere 5 extra minutes, quite likely less than that. I just Googled "0 Entity Iceland 2020 Bandcamp" and the link to the Bandcamp page for the album was the first result to pop up. What I will acknowledge is that, as Radu mentioned, the band could afford to be more consistent with their name across various platforms that stream their music. But this is only a problem if you're using multiple platforms for streaming in the first place, and personally I almost strictly use Bandcamp nowadays, so it's a bit of a nonissue for me.
---- I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go. ~ II. VII
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| musclassia Staff Posts: 7652 |
Written by Auntie Sahar on 12.09.2020 at 19:21 Well, for that, you still need to know that 〇 is 0 and not O, that they're from iceland, and that they released an album called Entity. We do have that information here, but I have friends/acquaintances that regularly send me recommendations, but they often just send the band name - but because they're actual searchable band names, I don't normally have any difficulty finding them without any extra information. And what about talking about this band verbally instead of written down? Yes, this discussion is nitpicky, but as I've said before, given the almost infinite amount of music released worldwide, there's not much benefit to making your music harder to find than that of your effectively endless competition. This band could just go by Null everywhere, as they do on Spotify, and use 〇 as a band logo on album artwork/concert posters - given that they go by Null in certain places, and that is seemingly what 〇 is intended to mean (surely if it's a viable standalone name it doesn't have to translate to anything), that indicates to me that the band do recognize this issue to a degree as well
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| brimarsh Posts: 73  |
The inconsistency across platforms is what made this an issue for me. No amount of "Entity" searching in Spotify yielded the results I was looking for. I found them extraordinarily easy on Bandcamp, but, finding things on Bandcamp seems to be a non-issue because Google is far more forgiving with vague queries than most streaming platforms. If you are releasing music it's inferred that it is?at least in some compacity?intended for public consumption, and this consumption is only possible if the public can find it. I doubt anyone who truly wants to listen to this would give up the moment they couldn't find it on their first search, which makes their name a trivial obstacle at best, but I do question the logic behind calling themselves "〇" one place, "0" in another place, and then also "Null" somewhere else. If there is one thing I don't miss about the music discovery of generations past, it's the obstacles in finding music.
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| Desha delicious dish Posts: 817 |
Written by musclassia on 13.09.2020 at 11:57 Yup, I had to search for them as "O". And really even when searching for "O Entity" Spotify didn't give me anything (though, that search algorithm specifically is trash). Just had to search for the album title and try and find it. Also it's not even Null but like Núll lmao. It's a shame cause the band name is actually quite cool/fitting. But I thought it was like a Sunn O))) kind of thing.
---- You are the hammer, I am the nail building a house in the fire on the hill
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| Starvynth i c deaf people Staff Posts: 3172  |
If this discussion has impressively demonstrated one thing, then it is the clear evidence of the fact that fanciful names help distract from one particular aspect that should be every band's central matter: their music. Which is, by the way, pretty good. Unfortunately, the vocals are not really my cup of tea.
---- signatures = SPAM
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| Troy Killjoy perfunctionist Staff Posts: 21306 |
Written by Starvynth on 15.09.2020 at 20:33 True, but it also potentially brought them far more attention on this site than if they were named something more generic like Nunslaughtering Necrofuckers or something to that effect. It encouraged a conversation even if not about the music itself, but that exposure alone brings more lurkers to read the review, and possibly investigate the music as a result. Similar to how pop artists become famous for controversial lyrics, hyper-sexualized music videos, bizarre fashion choices, etc. meanwhile the music takes a complete backseat to the discussion at hand.
---- "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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| RaduP CertifiedHipster Staff Posts: 9037 |
So basically came for the unusual name, stayed for the music.
---- Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking One day there will be no heart at all?
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| brimarsh Posts: 73 |
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| Troy Killjoy perfunctionist Staff Posts: 21306 |
Written by brimarsh on 15.09.2020 at 22:47 〇 sex tape incoming.
---- "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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| nikarg Staff Posts: 7367 |
Written by Troy Killjoy on 15.09.2020 at 23:23 My band will be on that tape. We are called |
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| brimarsh Posts: 73 |
I hope its better than Ray-J's sex tape; that was possibly the only thing worse than his music.
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