Band:	Ovtrenoir
Album:	Fields Of Fire
Style:	Post-metal, Sludge metal
Release date:	October 23, 2020
A review by:	RaduP

01. Phantom Pain
02. Wires
03. Echoes
04. Kept Afloat
05. Those Scares Are Landmarks
06. I Made My Heart A Field Of Fire
07. Slumber

Dehn Sora is perhaps best known as for his one-man bands, either the black metal Throane or the dark ambient Treha Sektori. Here, he is the guitarist in a post-metal band.

Formed around 2014 in Paris, France, the quartet released a EP-that-is-sort-of-long-enough-to-kinda-be-an-LP with 2016's Eroded, but Fields Of Fire, though only around 12 minutes longer, is where the band truly debuts. I can't seem to find out if anybody of the three members who aren't Dehn Sora are or were part of any significant projects, so I can only hope that Dehn's back is strong enough to carry the entire band's need for clout. So, in short: French band, debut album, Dehn Sora plays guitar. Good. I mentioned that Ovtrenoir plays post-metal, but I guess I should've been more specific that they're on the side of post-metal that is more atmospheric sludge metal than heavy post-rock. Just to clear any confusion.

I'm far from the best French speaker out there, despite all those classes in high school, but from my understanding the band name means something along the lines of "blacker than black". A bit of false advertisement, considering that the band don't play black metal, but as the mood it tries to convey, especially in tandem with the bleak cover art, it's pretty fitting. The cover art and Dehn Sora's involvement are what got my attention in the first place, but of course it happens that the cover art is actually made by Dehn Sora himself, in collaboration with one Hideyuki Ishibashi. And if you want to have thick bass-heavy depressing riffs, you better have the cover art to match it up. Or in this case, the other way around.

It's more than just that they're both French, but at times it does sound like Gojira making a post-metal album but with no chugs. Mostly because of the vocals, but also a bit in the ability to be melodious and crushing at the same time in a very specific way. As much as I enjoy the vocals, I can't help but feel that they lack the variety needed to make the emotional impact of an album that tries to be so mournful and sombre. It falls just short of actually being great post-metal, and as great as the bass and drums that back the guitars and vocals are, the latter two don't do nearly enough to break from the mold of the lineage of a lot of other post-metal bands that attempted this exact sounds and did it better.

It's quite like a one-trick pony. Hearing a few minutes of this is pretty amazing, especially with the way the production emphasizes all the right crushing qualities of the sound, but over the course of the entire listen, you end up realizing that those ambient interludes felt like the most original part of the entire thing.