Band:	Opthalidon
Album:	Zero
Style:	Industrial metal
Release date:	November 2012
A review by:	BitterCOld

01. Rotten River
02. Mr. Grady
03. Dead Meat
04. Flowing Time
05. Tetraktys Hermetica

So old school heavy metal is making a comeback, thrash has had a retro phase for nearly a decade now. Black metal has never really entirely left. So why not retro industrial metal?

Behold Opthalidon.

There are two things these Italians like.

Zeros. The album title is 0 (note - temporarily labelled 'Zero' due to software issues), and the members, after each adopting the stage name Opthalidon differentiate themselves from one another by tacking, you guessed it, zeros on. Opthalidon 0, Opthalidon 00, etc.

Early industrial metal. The various 0's showcase a lot of influences in 0. In their words, they wanted to use the album to illustrate and build upon the genre's evolutionary stages. Godflesh, Pitchshifter, Fear Factory, and Red Harvest are represented as the foundations of the songs. Oh, and yes, they toss in a few samples as well to add a cool, mysterious vibe.

"Rotten River", for example, has the rumbling bass, waves of distortion building to crushing, hammered riffs. "Mr. Grady" slow builds with before twisting back and forth between dance break beats and rapid fire tremolo riffing. Other moments had me recalling that Fear Factory scored battle in the [url= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2McbQrH0qI0]Mortal Kombat movie[/url] - unfortunately some of my furniture isn't good at taking a beating as the set of the movie.

Industrial metal, by synthesizing metal aggression with the myriad of electronic/cyber/industrial approaches, can cover a lot of ground. From the mechanized metal assault of Fear Factory to the smothering, cold, anxiety attack of Godflesh and Red Harvest to just really aggressive dance music for those not so much into the Tiesto.

Opthalidon do a fantastic job of creating songs that incorporate all these various elements. They pay heed to the past while pivoting and moving forward.