Om - Advaitic Songs (CD, Double vinyl LP)

Fuck. I love Om! I saw them play live at Supersonic a while back with our Ant and they blew both of our faces right off. They were totally the highlight of the festival and even though we were picking up face scrapings for the rest of the night I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Pilgrimage is one of my top ten albums of all time. It’s nigh on a perfect record and for the ‘difficult third album’ that’s really quite an achievement. Seriously if you’re not familiar with then just buy the thing ‘cause it’s fucking mint. You won’t ever see a band as powerful just comprising of drummer and bass player.

Right I’ve sworn twice. Grow up Phil...it’s not big or clever. What is both big and clever is the fifth studio album from our Om called ‘Advaitic Songs’. I’ve been listening to this over the last couple of months as we’ve had a promo for a while and it just gets better each time. The opener ‘Addis’ has female vocals in the style of some kind of religious chant before some percussion kicks in and some guitars and strings. It’s simple, yet deep and rich...Christ I feel like I’m talking about chocolate cake...mmm cake...It’s a mellow opener and if you’re after the more stonery heavy Om then you have to wait no longer than track 2 ‘State Of Non Return’ which has the most awesome sludgey fuzzy bass I’ve heard in years. It’s a total slow mantric rifforama and when Al’s vocals kick in you’re in familiar kick ass Om territory. It’s disturbingly good and it’s the only example of the noisier Om on the whole album which may upset some folk.

Throughout the five tracks you’re put through a brilliantly paced record which is epic in scale, scope and sound. About three minutes into ‘’Sinai’ you get a DJ Shadowish beat (along the lines of Midnight In A Perfect World) complete with amazing breaks and fills with some misery cello and a really intense keyboard in the background. The tunes are great though and I’d say it’s probably as close as Om will get to a pop record. It’s still experimental, the songs are long (five tracks over a double LP), it’s got their heaviness, their soft side, the religious themes, maybe a bit of Gregorian chanting (if you’re lucky), lush orchestration, amazingly good and varied percussion and a bit of ‘Om pop’. It’s everything you want in a record and more and it’s better than God Is Good (in my opinion). Nice work guys!

As Pentastar(in the syle of demons) was to Earth 2 so Advaitic Songs is to Variations on a Theme or something. God is Good already rang in some of the changes with the addition of tamboura, cello and flute but after three years hiatus from recording, blah blah blah It's basically impossible to describe this album thats how utterly unique it is. Imagine if Sleep were a hasidic jewish rock band or if Arvo Part was a Sufi composer and that barely even touches on what they sound like on this record. One of the most stunningly original and beautiful "rock" albums ever recorded is not an overstatement in my mind of just what everyone involved in this record has achieved. Drag City also pull out all the stops in the packaging. Beautiful sleeve design and label art and 2x12"s that allow it to be ramped up to full volume without any distortion.