www.alternativematter.net/reviews/johan-wolfgang-pozoj-escape-of-pozoj
Dear god, what is this Escape of Pozoj for an album?! It has honestly taken me over 10 spins of the entire thing to get through to the essence of it. While at first sight, Johann Wolfgang Pozoj appears, with this album, to be yet another one that jumps on the avant-garde black metal bandwagon. But, to
just hold on to that claim and disregard them as yet another band stepping out of the black metal confinements without any real conviction, would mean wronging J.W. Pozoj severely. This album is the second installment of a trilogy, and it is their fourth release to date. It is a re-recorded version of the original Escape of Pozoj, which was released two years ago. J.W. Pozoj initially released their music on their own account, but got picked up by the Italian label code 666. This is their second release on this label, preceded by Birth of Pozoj, the trilogy will most likely be concluded with an album called Return of Pozoj at the close of next year.
Escape of Pozoj opens, as so many self-proclaimed avant garde black metal bands with an ambient intro. No drums, just a haunting soundscape. The guitars are introduced for the first time about one minute into the song and they set the mood quite adequately for the entire album. Melancholy drips from every chord. While the album is supposedly about: the peak of fertility and growth, maturity and completely becoming real where the idea is fulfilling its purpose, the music would suggest otherwise. That is, unless reaching ones full potential and realizing what life is all about unequivocally brings upon a sense of melancholy as well.
Melancholy is a popular theme within black metal these days, depressive black metal bands are thriving and Agalloch copies shoot up from the ground like daisies (not the most obvious of comparisons, but not any less true for of it). Because of this inevitable layer of melancholy that lies atop the music, it is hard to look beyond and find what a truly splendid piece of music created here. Dissonant, hazy but most certainly well thought through. The various elements of the music, to me, at first appeared to be disharmonious, but nothing less is true. After a couple of spins, I realised that every switch in tempo that appears to make no sense is actually perfect in its own right. A perfect example of that is Song of Pozoj, where the bass line appears to follow a different pattern from the two guitar lines yet both manage to stay in tune with the drums.
The vocals are another rather unexpected element as well. The grunts are rather deep and sound hoarse, which is quite unusual when it comes to black metal. Whereas the spoken and scarce clean vocals remind me of Huppogrammos (Dordeduh and Negura Bunget) and Fulmineos (Negura Bunget), theyre obviously dissonant, but never truly out of key. That is impressive, given the chaotic structure of a song such as Careless are your souls, which blends searing guitars with a bass melody (lead by naught but cymbals that lay low in the mix), spoken word and haunting screams.
Should consider your interest in this band peaked, give Careless are your souls and I am the Forest a spin. Those tracks are two prime examples of what J.W. Pozoj is capable of: well defined and structured (yet chaotic)
avant-garde black metal. Escape of Pozoj as a whole is certainly recommended to fans of the less primitive side of black metal. It is intriguing, and takes some really thorough listening to get through to the core, but I can assure you that it is worth it. J.W. Pozoj is most certainly not just another avant-garde band simply for the hell of it, and I very much look forward to the conclusion of the trilogy, Return of Pozoj.