Full Album Stream: Ottone Pesante – “Doomood”

Just when doom metal starts to feel stale or like the genre’s reached its creative peak, something emerges to turn the sound on its head. In this case, it’s Ottone Pesante and their new album Doomood, which takes an atmospheric doom framework and reworks it using a brass section. The Italian band’s fourth album, Doomood recalls bands like SubRosa in its melodic, intentional approach to things—notes are given room to breathe, except when they aren’t on tracks like “Serpentine Serpentone,” and each part feels essential to the mood.

While the presence of brass may appear to be a gimmick on first listen, it quickly becomes clear that the choice to use trombone, trumpet and drums instead of the typical guitar/bass/drums model adds a lot to the sound; it opens up new sonic avenues and takes familiar motifs in an entirely new direction.

Doomood is a slower and darker album,” Ottone Pesante tell Decibel. “It’s brass atmospheric doom metal played with just a trumpet, a trombone and drums. It’s a palindrome album, so that you can listen to it from the beginning to the end and vice versa and you will hear almost the same music. It’s about the abyss inside everyone, dug by a ‘parasite’ that proceeds slowly, inexorable, unrestrainable. That creature can change skin or face, it can deceives us to stop for a moment, but it will go on without rest in a distressing spiral, annihilating us.”

You can hear Doomood in full now before its official release on September 18. Pre-orders are available via Bandcamp.