My review: Ötzi - Ghosts

 Ötzi

Ötzi - Ghosts

2017

How beautiful life is when you can still be amazed and particularly by a sublime art such as Music.

Of course, in the case of this splendid album, we are unfortunately faced with a great emotional burden as well, dictated by a tragedy occurred in Oakland in December 2016, when some friends of Ötzi lost their lives, together with other people. This speaks volumes about their grief and their sensitivity and all this was unfortunately highlighted in the video of the song Ghosts, which is also the title of the album.

This record reveals to the world this band in all its devastating power both with the music that embraces post-punk and Gothic genre and really deep lyrics, incorporating anger and sadness and in which their critical eye observes the world around them in different ways. 

After the devastating debut of the ep S/T DEMO, 5 explosive songs that upset me personally still today, and the equally incredible ep Gong Show, with two songs that smell of blood and the bonus track in a digital version called Drought, the band, made up of Akiko and Gina, surrounded in turn by different friends and musicians, writes and publishes its long-distance debut, a debut certifying its class that can only increase, no doubt.

10 songs for almost 31 minutes in which those who are more naive and inattentive can finally meet this combo that oozes beauty, intensity and seriousness in every composition.

A few minutes as it suited post-punk of the late seventies, no aptitude for dwelling on anything, but a define desire to be effective without wasting time, having in the barrel of their talent bullets made of simplicity, a rare thing these days.

My call is not only to buy and to listen to this album, but also to go to their gigs where you can meet sweet and nice people, willing to be in contact with others because that is their target: to be people capable of not having arrogant vices, but rather to feed hungrily on the persons they see during their tours.

This is a must have album and I thank the God of Music for the gift of such a unique band!

Ötzi

Song by song

Magpie

"It grows inside me

you cut inside me

But I can't feel it

now I can’t feel anything

I’d rather die, it is my right

Just leave me here on the sand "

The album begins with a dark song in its lyrics, a need for solitude that grows between each line and where the music perfectly accompanies all this.

Hounds

The water moves like skin

The night is centering

How to walk with me

Hecate, call your hounds

Akiko and Gina, as often happens, sing in the same song, alternating here, in a night shot because this song is really a shot 195 intense seconds long. 

Winter

Paralyzed, trapped in ice,

terrorized, lost in lies

A tune about purity, free from any contamination, shows us  Ötzi’s melodic and Gothic side in a song that in a delicate way makes us understand the music they have been listening to for years, but revived with their style.

Drought

What darkens me will kill the beast in my eyes

Isolation

These dreams have sent me to endless nights

A keyboard starts the dance in the black heart of the night, a tune that shows us their ability to play also songs dressed in Darkwave. An isolation perfectly described with the voices in unison ...

Ghosts

I ride in this point of light

Through aether and stars and spacetime

The title track leads us to tears, Akiko's low and sometimes raucous voice contrasts with that of Gina, a Joy Division style bass and a guitar that greets some English post-punk bands of the 80’s together with Gina’s essential drums are the sign of distinction of this song, the tune most drenched in pain in the album, a timeless wonder.

Cruel economy

Reflections of us on the ground

Eviction is the expectation

Fading shadows on the walls

What will you take from it all?

One can only bow before so much beauty, a kick in the face of everyone's lies, a request to fight to see if there is real support or opposition ... a guitar that seduces and a refrain that becomes a mantra and the need to know what love is.

Charms

Casting shadows on my grave

I caught shivers

Holding on to my breath

I won't lose my soul

where the wanderers rest

A new rough diamond, blacker than black, shines against misfortune, superstition, and other dark aspects of life on a music that is a sword of Damocles which tears us slowly.

Six candles

Her dress is darkest leather

By her side sits her familiar

She casts her spell upon me

Then she’ll waltz around me

If there is an apotheosis, a vertex and an irresistible vortex in this album this song is the real candidate, everything is perfect, the 80s knocking at the door, amazing lyrics, a rough arrangement on a melodic line so efficient that it enchants us, that it needs to be listened to again, where all the instruments run at a dizzying pace.

Sunbeam

Remember back to a choice

you never made

and they can't describe you still particle or wave

We are at the edge of a cliff, the ocean is under our eyes and this song is a butterfly not sure about taking flight or not, a guitar which is like a scimitar, an old New Wave drumming invites the bass to fly, it at least .. .and Akiko dominating everything with a sensual voice.

Stigmata

Staring at the fence

They want to cage me

Incarcerate me

If I don’t climb

I will never ever

escape this life

We are motionless, unable to move, in these hallucinated and psychedelic lyrics, the sound carpet is devastating, tribal, we must kneel before this immeasurable Gem that closes a stratospheric album forcefully, and it does so like a scream bouncing along every second of this music, which is a scathing dance that nails us to the ground definitively.

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld 

17 - 7 - 2019

Salford 

https://open.spotify.com/album/04uknszdBoRRv3OTbVwRlP?si=uLfJ0R-nQOGzBhhehzlFXw