OUROBIGUOUS, An Oath to Forever Defile  (2011, self-released)

The skull:
This skull was unearthed in a Kentucky backwoods, near a settlement of satanic hillbillies who practiced a particularly strange and disturbing ritual. The cult members kill indiscriminately, then suck the victims’ brains out through their ears, using only a bendy straw. They chase the brains with homemade kombucha made with only the most natural ingredients. You thought they drank blood too? C’mon, that’s sick.

The music:
We unearth skulls in many ways, and we’ve collected hundreds, so it’s difficult to remember exactly where we dug this one up. It wasn’t Metal Archives, because this band isn’t listed there. Which seems strange, looking at the album cover, the title of this work, and the skully trappings. But indeed, they are not acknowledged as being metal enough by that great site. Once I finally found this band’s music (bandcamp), I understood why they were passed over for inclusion on M.A. Ourobiguous is just flat-out WEIRD. There is an elements of black metal here (some of the guitar tones and maybe the vocals), but the songs are impossibly fractured pieces of sound, ridiculously angular and completely lacking in flow. And you understand, from the focused attack, that this is absolutely intentional. Disorienting, maniacal, absolutely fucked up and just plain wrong. If A.C. and Orthrelm played Doctor Nerve covers and recorded the rehearsal, it would sound a lot like Ourobiguous. I would never listen to this again, but I will never forget the experience, and I’m very glad to have come across this incredibly odd Illinois unit. Not for everyone. Possibly for no one.
— Friar Wagner