Album review: The Osiris Club – The Green Chapel
Folk-horror obsessed psych-doomsters The Osiris Club dare listeners to step inside The Green Chapel…
The third album from English folk-doom collective The Osiris Club wears its influences on its ragged wizard’s sleeve. Named after the “accursed church” from the Arthurian fable of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, The Green Chapel attempts to set ancient English legend and more modern sci-fi and folk-horror to sound, chucking trippy psych-rock, swirling prog and driving proto-metal into a bubbling cauldron ladling out a darkly bewitching brew.
Tapping into M.R. James’ haunting 1911 short story Casting The Runes, opening track Phantasm lays out the stall early on, with wailing vintage Mellotron layered over a juddering, jazzy tale of ‘broken dreamscapes’ and ‘magic mirrors’. Moscow tips us on down the rabbit-hole, its ode to Russia’s infamous mad monk Rasputin as depicted in Mike Mignola’s aforementioned Hellboy series (in honour of the secret society from which, the band are named) fizzling with hallucinogenic purpose and rasping malevolence. Two-part epic The Inmost Light – surely a reference to Arthur Machen’s dark 1922 sci-fi short story – scales everything up with arena-rock ambition, calling to mind the likes of Rush and Genesis, yet packing its 10-plus minutes with delicious insidiousness.
You don’t need to share these lads’ impressively nerdy knowledge of the weird and wonderful to appreciate their bold sonic creations, mind. The saxophone-driven Diamonds In The Wishing Well is an evocative, beguiling dive into some glittering underworld. Count Magnus (drawing from a 1904 M.R. James publication) initially sounds like an impenetrably oscillating headfuck, but it opens up with untold cool. The frankly bonkers, four-part title-track is a brassy exercise in out-there prog rock that switches between electric and acoustic to gleefully disorienting effect.
Sure, The Green Chapel is an unwieldy, unapologetically esoteric listen, but rarely has retro-revivalism bristled with such purpose and thematic depth. If you’re still plugged-in at the point dark, ethereal closer The Crow subsides into shadow, you’ll already agree that The Osiris Club are one of the most fascinating heavy outfits currently operating on Britain’s fair shores.
Verdict: 4/5
For fans of: King Crimson, Mastodon, Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats
The Green Chapel is out now via Bad Elephant