The brothers Sondre Veland and Bastian Veland founded Ossicles in 2011. They released their amazing debut album Mantlepiece a year later when these two boys were only 16/17 years young. In 2015 they presented their second album Music For The Wastelands on which they took care of all the instruments and did all of the vocals. On this album they were are assisted by guest musicians Erlend Jenssen on saxophone and vocalist Kain Makiranta. The album features 14 songs and lasts a little bit too long in my humble opinion, but every song definitely has its own identity. The saxophone plays a too dominant role in certain tracks, for instance in Darkroom, ět actually gets on my nerves... Some songs, like Tectonic, drag along as a sort of lounge music and that is not really my cup of tea. Luckily Ossicles also plays some excellent prog/ neo rock songs on this album, take for example Will It Last, Exit Wound or Girl With The Glass Eye, which is probably one of the best prog rock songs on the entire album. The longest track Pandemonium, which clocks over 12 minutes, is a song that you really have to listen to a couple of times to really appreciate it. Porcelain Doll is another highlight, a great song filled with lots of nice melodies and the album ends with the instrumental title track which kind of reminds me of good old Mike Oldfield. Music For The Wastelands is best experienced by means of headphones, but I still think that these two guys can do better, as most of the tracks are too laid back to be called prog rock.... ***+ Martien Koolen (edited by Astrid de Ronde) Where to buy? |
