Offret - Зверь (Void Wanderer Produc�ons / Vox Project / Dead Red Queen Records / Grains of Sand / Manchikha) Review by Miloš Šebalj Seeing how no less than five record labels (from four different countries) stood behind this album, I must admit I had my hopes up. So many people willing to put their hard earned and never returned money into a release, they must have go�en something very special. Turns out I was wrong. Since I’ve go�en the request for a review from the Dutch Void Wanderer Produc�ons and their catalog is usually well selected, I expected much more from the Russians. “Зверь” (“Beast”) is the debut album by a trio that has previously released a self-�tled EP and a split with Black Mare. So, shorter releases, which bears the ques�on of Offret’s capability of presen�ng a full length record. Especially when you browse through all the varie�es the album has to offer. The concept behind “Зверь” is based on primal human needs, aspira�ons and desires. To be precise, it covers the founda�on of humankind from back when we were a young species of bipeds. Exploring such a backline might be interes�ng from a historical point of view, but the Russians failed to merge it into a compact piece of music. Their musical output varies from song to song, where you get a full on, noisy and raw black metal, followed by a melancholic and acous�c doomy intermezzo. Other �mes, there is a clear homage to early Emperor atmospheric black metal, supported by keyboards, yet s�ll quite noisy and disturbing. Not to forget the four minute ‘spacey’ ambient track “Данакиль”. There’s just too much going on here, so that my above men�oned point stands. It would work much be�er as two or three short collec�ons of similar tracks. That way it would certainly preserve more coherency. Perhaps it should have even ended up as two different projects if there is such a vast musical expanse the trio is trying to cover. Bear in mind the album is terribly produced, so I might have missed something, simply because it was le� inaudible. It needed much be�er sound quality if it was going for such a collec�on of hard to swallow sounds. Now, Offret does carry a certain dose of crea�ve momentum. Fromwhat I could hear, at least. “Зверь” fragmentally brings very tasty parts to the table and it is clear there are some fine ideas behind the album. However, they are not fi�ed together and seem as if piled up on top of each other. Pouring everything you got into an album is not a good idea if you do not use the skills to arrange them into something concrete. There’s a whole lot of moments on this record that will sa�sfy different audiences. Sadly, I do not think any of themwill be sa�sfied with the whole album. Take a listen and pick your own favorites. h�ps://www.facebook.com/offretband/ h�ps://voidwandererproduc�ons.bandcamp.com/
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