Album Review: Recoil VOR - 'Othello'

Sydney thrashers Recoil VOR have spent the early part of their career refining the sound , overall blueprint and finding their signature appeal. The lads managed to do that with their previous album, leaning towards more progressive sounds and now they are back with a series of EPs. ‘Othello’ marks the beginning of the set.

The release is short and sweet, with only five tracks, but the band manages to compress and deliver some important moments within. ‘Human Dependency’ allows you to feel the anger and emotion in the sound. This is purposeful in condensed form.

‘The Mexican’ has an interesting introduction but makes for a refreshing contrast and here we see the first use of clean vocals to mix things up a bit. The guitar work is equally catchy and all the different elements of this song work well together to create a point of difference.

‘Don’t Know Me’ marks itself as probably the heaviest song on the EP and takes the pace up a few notches with a hint of thrash influence in there. Concluding track, ‘Spinning Wheel’ changes things up again with a beautiful and harmonious vocal piece.

While there are some repetitive sounds on here, songs like ‘The Mexican’ and ‘Spinning Wheel’ add just enough flavour to make it stand out.

'Othello' isn't a revolutionary album by any means but there is just enough experimentation to make this release enjoyable for its entirety.

1. Human Dependency

2. The Mexican

3. Sunshine

4. Don’t Know Me

5. Spinning Wheel