Album Review: Owdwyr - Receptor
Reviewed by Liam True
Having your debut album clock in at fifteen tracks is either a show of creativity or just needless filler for a few songs. Receptor, however, is amongst the most divisive debuts you can imagine. Taking inspiration from tech demons Car Bomb all the way back to the classical stylings of J.S Bach.
As batshit as that sounds, Owdwyr incorporates those two wildly differing genres admirably. While on the surface it may seem as though you know what you’re getting into with the technical death metal noises slapping you in the face on opening song The Liminal Carapace, it unravels slowly until you’re met with Ein. How a band can transition that well from vile growls and stupendous riff work to the classical piano without missing a beat is immense.
The main issue regarding the album is that the band don’t have a drummer as of yet, so they’ve had some help from guest percussionists. We have Navene Koperweis (Entheos, Ex-Animals As Leaders), Kenny Grohowski (Imperial Triumphant, John Zorn), Kevin Paradis (Ne Obliviscaris, Benighted) & many other appearances. You may think it would be a great way to work the album to have different drummers, but honestly, it makes for an incredibly frustrating listen. Having that much star power and having them let loose across the fifteen songs is good on paper. But when it comes to listening, it’s abundantly clear that there’s too many featured guest drummers. Three would have been great, but upwards of 5 is just messy. It’s a shame really because the album is well recorded, well assembled and lyrically sounds great. But the addition of the many guests makes it fall short of the mark.
The secondary issue is the song lengths. The longest song, Ein, clocks in at only five minutes, making the other songs rushed and uninspired, but that’s not the case. The shorter song lengths make you yearn for more from the band. Fifteen songs just aren’t enough.
Still, you can’t exactly call the album dynamic, because that’s not enough to even scratch the surface of how to describe it. It’s unpredictable. It’s sharp turn after sharp turn. But more importantly, and surprisingly, it works.
