Oracle Hands – Dirge of the Doomed
Release Date: 25th April 2025
Label: Moment Of Collapse Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Atmospheric Sludge Metal, Post-Metal.
FFO: Rosetta, Oathbreaker, Amenra, Thou, Converge, Hessian.
Review By: Rick Farley
With a potent blend of aggression and melancholy, this German post-metal, atmospheric sludge band Oracle Hands are releasing their debut full length album, Dirge of the Doomed via Moment Of Collapse Records on April 25th, 2025. A balanced noisiness of darkened melody, dense heaviness and emotionally charged intensity. The bulky swampiness lurks over dynamic post tonal complexities, offering up a boundary pushing dive into this often stale and saturated post genre. Dirge of the Doomed however is loaded with murky, heavy, and unique songs that are both hook filled and deeply emotive, which gives this record a sonically different feel. Doomy elements are present, and the tones are pure ugliness, but this is a more energetic frenzy which elevates the oppressive soundscape to being urgent rather than completely suffocating. The band is great at elevating atmospheric tension with foggy airiness and claustrophobic flourishes. It’s an intoxicating, primitive feeling of hopefulness as you’re submerged in abyssal swampy waters while trying to escape.
Opening track, The Order, is a blast of groove filled menace. Intricately structured chords are enhanced with nasty distortion and nauseating, scratchy growls. It’s a rude introduction to the band that brings its weighty sludge into an otherworldly atmosphere. The ugliness continues immediately following with track two, Nihilistic Rites. It opens with a fast distorted bassline that leads its way to a neck stomping swaggering riff. It’s an infectious blend of post and sludge metal that subconsciously forces your body to move uncontrollably. The disgusting pulsing anger from Drain the Poison is brain rattling. Stormy tones rage with a punky ambience, ensuring pit violence in the live setting.
Sadly, not everything here is successful, though. Track three Dissonance of the Tongueless, while full of magnificent harsh vocals and driving pace, it sounds a little like filler material. It’s not a bad song by any means, but compared to the musical quality of a few others, it’s lacking some intrigue. Track four Pulse unfortunately doesn’t sound coherent to the vibe of the album. It starts promising, pushing the heaviness and complex chords forward while being emotionally deep in an ethereal way. Then it awkwardly kind of switches into an upbeat happiness that I’m just not a fan of. It spends far too long in this state of forced poppiness that it becomes a disjointed contrast, unable to be recognized as an integral part of the album. Siting at seven minutes, it’s the second-longest song on Dirge of the Doomed, making it an insignificant chunk of music, for me at least. The album heavily leans into stylistic aggressive intensity, which is why this one is feels completely random.
Oracle Hands, however, is still a promising band with a bright future. Armed with songwriting chops and a keen sense of organic anger built in. They’re engaging, memorable and are fully aware of how great hooks work. It will be interesting to see where this band goes on future records. I will say this at least, take my dislike of the track Pulse with a grain of salt and at least give these guys a chance. I can honestly see a world where the right type of fans will be ecstatic with the entirety of Dirge of the Doomed.
(3 / 5)
