Oryx is a trio based in Denver that has been evolving its evolving its unique style of heavy music since forming in 2012. When the band emerged it’s grittily colossal metal sound fit in well with the then ascendant doom metal underground with roots in sludge rock and grindcore. Early Oryx shows and releases showcased a band seemingly able to balance a precise musicianship with a wall of sound that felt spontaneous and on the verge of collapse. It suited well the band’s lyrics that evoked the precarious place the world has been in due to the effects of human civilization under the yoke of rapacious capitalism driven by greed and the accumulation of wealth into a few hands at the expense of all.
Some of Oryx’s early music had a thrilling density of frequency and rhythm but something about their shows have felt cathartic and liberating. That component of the group’s identity has manifested most fully in terms of songwriting on its new record Primordial Sky. The album doesn’t skimp on the beautifully brutal riffs and elegantly pummeling rhythms but also there is a wide open quality that while the lyrics describe a world on the brink of being post-human due to the hubris of societies that seem to be taking a casual attitude toward anthropogenic climate catastrophe and feckless approach to the rise of fascism and authoritarianism worldwide which have historically accelerated mass destruction. And yet the Oryx album doesn’t sound like it’s built on despair. Instead its poetic and mythical lyrics and the sound of the music come off as both looking at the world to come and looking back from another era when the current one we’re living in has passed. The band’s 2021 album Lamenting a Dead World seemed like an angrier affair but one with an accurate diagnosis of the state of things. The new album isn’t hopeful per se but realistic in its spirit of looking forward to a time when things can begin again without the toxic legacy of the world now to poison the possibilities.
Listen to our interview with Oryx on Bandcamp and follow the group at the links below. Primordial Sky is available on streaming, digital download and cassette from their Bandcamp page and on colored vinyl through Translation Loss Records.
Oryx on Translation Loss Records
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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