Owls (band)

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Owls
General information
origin Damascus , Syria
Genre (s) Post metal , blackgaze
founding 2009
Current occupation
Drums, vocals, guitar, keyboard, programming
 Fadi "Typhon" Massamiri
bass
 Seth
Live and session members
singing
 Sam Zamrik
singing
 Eve

Eulen is a Blackgaze and post-metal band founded in 2009 .

history

Eulen was founded by Seth and Fadi "Typhon" Massamiri in Damascus as a poltergeist. The group soon changed its name to Owl, and then to Owl. The group chose the German band name as a reference to the popular belief that owls are harbingers of bad luck in Syria . The band members did not comment on the German spelling. Massamiri that in several Syrian metal bands ( Viieden , Netherion , Exophoria , Abidetherein brings) and owner of the center for the Syrian Metal Scene Music Studios Old Hearth Studios is, takes over at Owls vocals, guitar, drums, keyboards and programming. Seth, a long-time friend of Massamiri, whose real name is not publicly known, plays the bass.

Owls In March 2011, published jointly with the Syrian band also Despair the Split - EP Enlightened . In October of the same year the debut album Mother Tree followed , which was first released via the Spanish Doom , Black and Death Metal label Xaphan Records and was restored and re-released the following year by the American Domestic Genocide Records . In February 2012 the EP Diminished Mass Realm was released, shortly after the re-release and also via Domestic Genocide Records . With the international release of the album Mother Tree and the EP Diminished Mass Realm, the band is one of the most successful extreme metal groups in Syria. The album is said to be the first release of a new wave of Syrian bands, sometimes called New Wave of Syrian Metal , who released their first albums between 2010 and 2012. Mother Tree is highlighted as the first metal album in the Middle East to pick up on elements of post-metal. The documentary filmmaker Monzer Darwish also refers to the group as an important representative of the younger Syrian metal scene.

In December 2012 a single followed, which was made available by the band as a download. Owls began work on the second studio album Name of the Sun shortly after the single was released . Sam Zamrik, who is active as a promoter and journalist in the Syrian metal scene, was brought in as the second singer. Recordings of the guitar, drums and keyboards that had already been made were lost in the turmoil of the Syrian civil war in September 2015 . The band announced in a statement on Facebook that they would continue to exist despite the war and the lost recordings. Further public announcements have not been made since then.

style

Owls play a mix of blackgaze and post metal . Massamiri names Agalloch as the most important style influence . Reviews also refer to Agalloch as an audible influence. As other artists who had an influence on the sound of the band, Massamiri names post-rock , blackgaze and post-metal artists , including Alcest , Isis , Godspeed You! Black Emperor and God Is an Astronaut .

The internet magazine Metalstorm calls the sound of the group “a kind of black and doom hybrid, slow, full and very melancholic.” The music plays with musical elements of Black Metal , but mainly transports terrifying suffering and doomy slowness with some post elements . According to the Spirit of Metal , the music contains both calm and hard passages. While the quiet phases are shaped by acoustic guitar and whispered vocals, the hard moments stand in contrast to this and fall back on growling , blastbeats and emphasized riffing between Doom and Black Metal. The website Ultimate Guitar describes the guitar playing as partly Arabic-inspired, but denies the classification of the group as world music .

Discography

  • 2011: Enlightened (split EP, self-published)
  • 2011: Mother Tree (Album, Xaphan Records / Domestic Genocide Records)
  • 2012: Diminished Mass Realm (EP, Domestic Genocide Records)
  • 2012: Morning Blood Requiem (single, self-published)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Sam Zamrik: Interviewing Owls. Blood or Love Zine, accessed June 24, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Bio. (No longer available online.) Bandpage, archived from the original on June 23, 2016 ; accessed on June 23, 2016 .
  3. ↑ a b c Bio. reverbnation, accessed June 23, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Sam Zamrik: On Syrian Metal: A Tribute To Fadi Massamiri. Blood or Love Zine, accessed June 24, 2016 .
  5. ↑ a b Grim Kim: Syrian Metal is War: An Interview with Filmmaker Monzer Darwish. Metal Sucks, accessed June 24, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Sam Zamrik: On Syrian Metal: Times of War. Blood or Love Zine, accessed June 24, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Owls: Dear Owlers. Facebook.com/EulenOfficial, accessed June 24, 2016 .
  8. ↑ a b miniradman: Owls: Mother Tree. Spirit of Metal, accessed June 24, 2016 .
  9. ↑ Doc Godin: Owls: Mother Earth. Metalstorm, accessed May 24, 2016 .
  10. ↑ theAccursed: Owls: Mother Earth. Ultimate Guitar, accessed May 24, 2016 .