Receiving the Evcharist is our weekly feature where we pair choice albums with our favorite libations. Drink from the cup of heresy. This week’s offering: MSW’s Obliviosus and Indie Brewing Company’s O’Malley’s Irish Stout.
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The Tunes: MSW’s Obliviosus
Things didn’t quite work out with the promo I picked up for this week, so I’m going to circle back to an album that is 100% in my wheelhouse: funeral doom from the person behind Hell released by Gilead Media. I talked about this album in brief detail on a soon-to-be-released podcast episode, comparing it to Hell III (my personal favorite of the Hell trilogy) in its sparse atmosphere and forlorn melodies, but Obliviosus is really a beast unto itself. MSW has a style that is instantly recognizable with his playing and composing, and album opener “O Brother” wastes no time in whipping up the blackened, sludgy fury that earned him the reputation he has, but it’s the somber, funereal piano and strings of “Funus” that follow in its wake, the lofty clean vocals that crest over waves of heavy chords in “Humanity,” the violin that drives the epic closing title track, where you get the sense of just what makes Obliviosus special. The darkness Obliviosus explores is one much more wreathed in sadness and loss than Hell or MSW’s ambient work as Cloud, and for good reason; the album lyrically touches on the struggle of watching a loved one in the grips of addiction and the fallout that a decade of that kind of pain can do to people who care about them. It’s a much more raw expression of MSW than I’ve heard before, and it manages to pack just about everything I want in a doom album along the way. What’s not to love?
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The Booze: Indie Brewing Company’s O’Malley’s Irish Stout
Fall fuckin’ equinox babey. You already know it’s stout season, and for my first official stout of official stout drinking time, I decided to keep things true to my roots with a nice can of the dry Irish variety. LA’s Indie Brewing Company have crafted a real winner in their O’Malley’s, a balanced yet still robust stout that uses hints of dark cocoa and coffee to accentuate the deeply roasted malt notes instead of drowning them out like some other stouts can. There’s nothing wrong with a chocolate stout or coffee stout in my book, but sometimes you just want it like they make it in the old country, and even though I wasn’t old enough to drink the one and only time I’ve visited Ireland, I like to think this one would go over well there.
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Cheers, and be good to each other,
– Vincent
Nine Circles 