Odious are a band from Egypt that plays a symphonic mixture of black death, and middle eastern folk metal and this is a review of their 2015 album "Skin Age" which was released by the Leaders.
Symphonic and classical elements start off the album and also mixes in with the heavier sections of the music where you can also hear all of the musical instruments that are present on the recording and when the music speeds up a great amount of blast beats can be heard while t he vocals are a mixture of death metal growls and black metal screams.
Elements of middle eastern and oriental folk music are used quite a bit throughout the recording along with the songs also bringing in a mixture of slow, mid paced and fast parts and there is also a good use of operatic female and male vocals on some of the tracks and when guitar leads are utilized they are done in a very melodic fashion and spoken word parts can also be heard in certain sections of the recording and when percussion is utilized it gives the songs more of a tribal and ritualistic feeling along with touches of world music.
Odious plays a musical style that takes symphonic black metal and mixes it with death metal and middle eastern/folk music to create something very original, the production sounds very professional while the lyrics cover mystery and war themes.
In my opinion Odious are a very great sounding symphonic mixture of black, death and middle eastern folk metal and if you are looking for something original, you should check out this band. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "Crown of Centuries" "AlZar" and "hot Blood Flames". 8 out of 10.
https://odiousband.bandcamp.com/releases