Buy CDs from this band at Darkcell Digital Music

Oneiroid Psychosis 
Dreaming (with pollutions when virile)
~reviewed by Matthew
  
“Oneiroid psychosis is characterized by an accused, dreamlike state – the patient feels and behaves as though in a dream. One may be deeply perplexed and not fully oriented in time and place. During this state of clouded consciousness, one may experience feelings of ecstasy and rapidly shifting hallucinated scenes” (Bantam Medical Journal).
As many have taken note over the past few years, the music of brothers Lars and Leif Hansen definitely captures the deranged gloom associated with neurotic mental states and the mind’s nocturnal journeys.  These Hansen brothers are about as far away from the sunshine that encompasses the Hanson brothers you may be more accustomed to be hearing about.  With the fourth full length Oneiroid Psychosis CD “Dreams,” the sinister duo continue to plumb the depths of psychologically and set their discoveries to perhaps the best and most atmospheric darkwave music being released today.
    
The coolest thing about this band is their dedication to mood – just as faithfully now as on their debut release Stillborn back in 1995.  Now signed to the COP International label, you might expect the band to have boosted the BPM’s a bit in order to fit in with the other more club oriented bands on the label.  But atmosphere still prevails, an aura comparable to the symphonic score to a dramatic horror film or an intense musical embellishment from modern PC role-playing games.
    
Though the band has some qualities that are comparable to other popular ‘Goth’ artists, Oneiroid Psychosis’ musical style is still immediately recognizable as its own unique entity and it is characterized by its own special blend of spine chilling eeriness.  Unlike a lot of their supposed contemporaries, these guys are actually DARK, and they are more concerned with making you shiver, question yourself (“Am I hallucinating?”), and immersing the listener in a kind of twitching, aural decay than they are concerned with being catchy or danceable.
   
With that said, this is easily one of the best CDs I have heard all year, if not only for the icy cold gloom of the album’s punchiest and most exciting track “Withering & Wishing.”  DJs simply must check out this track, and club goers, you must request it!  While this latest album continues to deliver the demented soundscapes the band is best known for, they have incorporate some fresh elements into the mix as well. Lief has introduced a greater use of electric guitar into the band’s sound, as best exemplified on the aforementioned track and the unnerving close of “Winter Day.”  The addition of guitar is subtle, used only to heighten particularly intense climaxes with the songs.

You won’t hear loud crunchy power chords or anything here; instead, the  parts are played with an admirable finesse, with spidery riffs stretching out to weave a web of unsettling melodic cacophony. However, the fact that the guitar only appears occasionally throughout the disc enables its presence to be even more effective.
    
The vocals are another thing that sets this band apart.  Lars’ voice may seem similar to some.  It has this remarkable ability of sounding like something or someone, but it cannot be placed.  Perhaps I heard his voice in a dream?  To me, in all honesty, he sounds like the creepy reclusive brother of Alice In Chains’ Layne Staley. But maybe that is just me.   Whatever the case, under the appropriate late night listening conditions, his whispers are like frigid gusts of winter air, his anguished nightmarish pleas are dizzying, and his narration seems to be from the first person account of some demented faerie tale or an escapee from one of Thomas Ligotti’s tale.
    
Oneiroid Psychosis is positively essential darkwave music.  This band takes the images and impressions of your strangest nightmares and sets them to an accessible, listenable, and a thoroughly enjoyable musical setting. You would be hard pressed to find another darkwave band as satisfying as this.

Track List:
1.) “killed today a young girl; it was fine and hot”
2.) Winter Day
3.) Discharge
4.) Cursed
5.) Withering And Wishing
6.) Disturbance
7.) Fragments
8.) In Nature And Black

Oneiroid Psychosis is:
Leif Hansen - composition, digital & analog synthesis, guitar, backing vocals
Lars Hansen - vocals, composition, guitar, production, synthesis

Guest female vocals: Cat Hall of Dissonance
Oneiroid Psychosis – Official Website: http://www.psylabs.net
Oneiroid Psychosis – Mp3 Site: http://www.mp3.com/oneiroidpsychosis
COP International: http://www.copint.com



Oneiroid Psychosis 
Garden Of Rememberance 
~reviewed by Jett Black 

Like a horrific film score for your favourite Halloween film, Oneiroid Psychosis begins by opening the first of 13 tracks with "Dark Day". Eerie, haunting, and clearly magnificent. The vocals of Lars and Leif Hansen throughout are absolutely spine chilling like that of a sudden premonition of impending disaster and doom. Add to this the under-currents of nails scratching along a spherical chalk board in perpetual motion and the mood is then captured. Garden of Remembrance is further spiced with guest vocalists to include the voices of Kristy Venrick of The Azoic, Shikee of Android Lust, and Tom Muschitz. A special introduction of Lisa Sparacino (track 4). Galatea (T-4) happens to be one of my favourites, in fact. I have yet to decide if my choice of favouritism rests with the beautiful vocalists or for the images my mind conjures in response to how these vocals are together joined. Listen to this track closely. Oneiroid Psychosis draws upon the mind's ability to entertain horrific fears and social taboos in conjunction with one another. 

Effortless ingenuity, talent, and skill cunningly draws the mind beyond the cliff of consciousness and let's you spin in terror and mental quandry for more than an hour. All of this is done in such subtlety that you may barely be conscious of it at all. The quality of the music itself is both exquisite and mesmerizing. 
 

Nilaihah Records : http://www.nilaihah.com