Band:	Öxxö Xööx
Album:	Ÿ
Style:	Avantgarde metal, Gothic metal
Release date:	November 29, 2019
A review by:	RaduP

01. 44³
02. D
03. 9C639
04. Köböl(D)
05. NS2
06. Lëïth Säë
07. 3ën
08. Döld
09. 999

If only Motörhead knew how far the umlaut would be taken into metal.

You may or may not already know Öxxö Xööx, this band whose name you have to copy paste every time you reference them, which also goes for their new album ?, or for all their albums for that matter, but this is the first time where it is 100% made up from characters with umlauts. And don't let me start on the tracklist. So just from that, you should know that Öxxö Xööx are not your usual band. What should tip you off even further is that its members are also part of such projects as Igorrr, Corpo-Mente and Rïcïnn and WHOURKR, and on this record also Master Boot Record, so similarly out-there bands. Obviously that weirdness seeps into the music as well.

There is a lot of common ground between the music of Öxxö Xööx and the one of the aforementioned projects. Even if at its core Öxxö Xööx tackles a sort of gothic doom metal, slow and sombre and with loads of strings and organs, but the elements of avant-garde are plastered all over: baroque elements, glitchy electronics, operatic vocals. All this to create a sound of doom that feels both like 17th century Gothic and 24th century Gothic. If you enjoyed the duet vocals on Igorrr's latest album, you'll love them here as well, where it feels like they fit more within the gothic doom framework than they do in breakcore. Even by the standards of this sort of collective that these bands have, as well as by the standards of Öxxö Xööx previous two records, ? feels like it finally polished all of these elements into a cohesive sound.

It's obvious that throwing so many things that seem somewhat at odds with one another into a melting pot can be a bad idea, but as unpredictable as ? often is, it never feels like the band is not in control of whatever they're creating, as much as the sound seems absolutely monstrous and unleashed. For such an expansive work whose palette covers doom metal, baroque, neoclassical and avantgarde electronics, it juxtaposes elements in such a way that they feel like they have always worked together perfectly, so that the music doesn't feel unnaturally stitched together. But doing all this while still making the music sound pleasingly weird and unpredictable even in the face of multiple relistens? That's an achievement.

So far, ? feels like a crowning achievement of this collective, but with an Igorrr album just around the corner, you never know.