REVIEW: Osmium - Osmium

If the world of music can do something with a precision, it’s bringing together talented artists for impressive collaborations. And thus Osmium was born, from the very minds of the Oscar-winning Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, known primarily for heart-shattering film scores (Joker; Tár; Chernobyl), the highly acclaimed musical engineer and producer James Ginzburg, known for his work for Emptyset, the Senyawa’s idiosyncratic vocalist Rully Shabara, who has been known for his very distinctive style, and the Grammy-winning sound designer and producer Sam Slater.

The self-titled EP Osmium is far from any mainstream music, as the focus of the album is primarily the questioning of relationships between humans and machines, tradition and progress, drawing from folk, doom metal, 20-century minimalism, industrial, and extreme noise. Since “OSMIUM 0”, the listeners are drawn to think about what they hear, being surrounded by clock-like sounds and Shabara’s bone-chilling vocals, that are present in every song and are representing the robotic sounds, all without using any voice-changing tools.

Credit: Camille Blake

“OSMIUM 1”, “OSMIUM 2” and “OSMIUM 3” are all very distinctive tracks, again, using primarily Shabara’s voice as the main instrument, while keeping the rhythms with intensely sounding drums. In “OSMIUM 2”, the listeners are met with hauntingly sounding cello, played by Guðnadóttir. “OSMIUM 3” is an intense song, primarily composed of drums as its predecessors, that is reminiscent of war drums sort of. The song contains a quick break, before going back to the same melody.

The rest of the tracks, namely “OSMIUM 4”, “OSMIUM 5”, “OSMIUM 6”, and “OSMIUM 7”, do not offer many new features unfortunately, and all the songs sound very similar in their respective styles, making the listening slightly difficult for anyone, who is not proficient in this type of music. The usage of the instruments remains unchanged as well, creating something resembling a big loop, that is not possible to escape.

Although the style of Osmium might not sit well with some listeners, it is evident that the members are all very talented musicians, who know their way around the industry and are not afraid to experiment. The self-titled EP is an excellent insight into the minds of its creators, touching on some sensitive topics, that might not be relevant in present, but are still important to talk about. Rully Shabara’s bone-chilling vocals are tying together the whole dystopian atmosphere of the release, bringing up the urgency of the topic. It surely is a piece to listen to while reminiscing about the past and the future that is about to happen.

Score: 6/10

Osmium’s self-titled EP is coming out on 20th June via Invada Records.

Words: Katerina Stepanikova