Other - Hylozoism

Other

Hylozoism
self-released; 2015

3.5 out of 5

By Megan Gazzo

The album Hylozoism by Other is one that is dingy and filled with metal shrapnel. Not for the faint of heart, it definitely takes you on a journey to the sharp edges of existence. The first song “Ceremony” reminds me of a song that would be in the witchy movie The Craft. It feels like a conjuring of ghosts and spirits. Sputtered electric guitar fills the empty spaces of the song and the eerie slight touch of bass here and again create a screeching uneasy feeling. The drums are forward marching and unrelenting. The main singer has a deep voice that echoes far and wide through each track.

“Dreaded Shows” is goose bump worthy. I could really see some weird witchy initiations happening to this song. Some chicken sacrifices and weird cloaks keep popping into my vision when I listen to this album. This song simply has one line of lyrics, "Walk alone into the fire, / Dreaded shadows at my heels." I think this announcement truly exemplifies the reality of the shadow that lives within all of us. It seems to kind of just hang on to the back of our ankles annoyingly. There is also a part of the song where an old timey radio voice chimes in and says, " The truth is irrelevant / its all a pile of lies / there is nothing close to the truth / it is all in your mind." This song is also laden with some sick guitar riffs that shoot you off into another world. It is a powerful piece with a powerful message. It feels like the darkness is being purged out of my body when I listen to it.

"Your Only Inspiration" Is dotted with space alien noises similar to the ones in the movie Contact with Jodie Foster when she is searching for alien intelligence with a satellite. Another heavy punk like, heavy metal, emotional downtrodden piece, this song exists somewhere between our shadows and the galaxy. It is both ethereal and deadly dark; feels like a wolf is tearing through you in this one. It is heavy.

The whole album is heavy and deep forcing an extraction of your shadowy self so you finally take a gander at it. We live in a society where everyone is trying to push their shadow down and put on a happy face, pretending to live a perfectly cookie cutter plastic life of happy existence. We all know that life is filled with pain, and pebbles and that is the only reason we can know the happiness and joy when we decide to create it for ourselves. Nothing we experience in life comes at us; it is our reaction to what happens that creates our reality. However there is the shadowy self and the light filled self, creating a symbiosis inside of is. This album with its cutting edge industrious metal sound is necessary for the age we are living in, to face the shadow and make friends. I love it and highly recommend it.

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