OSSICLES – Music for Wastelands

Ossicles is a Norwegian duo consisting of two cousins, Bastian Veland and Sondre Veland, who handle all the instruments on this sophomore album of theirs entitled "Music for Wastelands" themselves. Before I start raving about how much this album does not appeal to me, let it be known that I do applaud Karisma Records for continually releasing a lot of interesting and innovative albums and being very consistent, but this one by Ossicles is, frankly speaking, downright terrible in places. It is progressive and pretty far out there, but there is very little of musical value to be found anywhere on this disc. Needless to say, these guys are extremely talented when it comes to playing their instruments and so on, but I am left feeling that this entire album merely consists of different tracks as opposed to real songs, and that really leaves me in a foul mood. I can sense that they have tried to evoke and conjure up a captivating, fascinating, unpredictable, and adventurous musical landscape, but it does nothing for me. Regardless of how many times I listen to it, I am left with nothing. If you love and cherish Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, Opeth, and the likes, then maybe this will appeal to you. Who knows?

There are some great Karisma Records releases out there that we all ought to appreciate, but "Music for Wastelands" is just not one of them.

https://www.facebook.com/Ossicles/