Photo by Richard Postma
If Dopethrone is just too upbeat, Neurosis a little too PMA, and you’re looking for a band to amp up the misery quotient, let us introduce you to Holland quartet Onhou. Together since 2016, these dudes—Henk (bass), Arnold (drums), Alex (vocals/guitar), Florian (keyboards/vocals)—sound like they haven’t been exposed to sunlight since that fateful combining of their talents. Their wretched, post-metal inspired doom is an unyielding miasma of hateful, tortured and depressing sounds, like someone locked them in an underground prison with instruments and refused to release them until they’d knocked out an album or two.
Monument is Onhou’s second full-length, featuring four songs that (naturally) average over 10 minutes in length, and will bring no ray of sunshine to your world. Guaranteed. But, man, if you need to exorcise some existential angst, this is your soundtrack. Monument was recorded and mixed at Soundlodge in Germany by Jörg Uken and is set for release on December 9 on vinyl, cassette and digitally via Lay Bare Recordings and Tartarus Records. You can place your preorder here.
Here’s what the band had to say about its latest release:
“Monument elaborates on the idea of dismissing, refuting or even refusing something eternal and how the shards and shattered remains of such denial and battle echo through time and our consciousness. Overcoming a gruesome regime or overpowering force, in all forms imaginable, is a matter of perseverance. This can only be achieved by remembering who you are and paying tribute to what has been. Do not end up as the one who moved too slowly and never moved again.
“Musically we focused on the strengths of our sound, but we paid more attention to our surroundings. We had a more layered understanding of the way we recorded our instruments. The synths, electronics and the vocal approach are taken to a new level to expand our sonic vision. The cover art (by Frank Verhulst) captures the bleakness we tried to create through these four tracks, as well as depicting the ground where we as a band come from.”
