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Osukaru - The Labyrinth


Stefan

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PRESS RELEASE: OSUKARU to release "THE LABYRINTH" in March 2017!

Swedish AOR band Osukaru are about to release their brand new album "The Labyrinth" in March 2017, which will be their 4th full length studio album, but also their first ever concept album. It was mixed by Viktor Stenquist (Beseech, Amorphis) and Attila Bokor (Morph, BOA, Osukaru).

"The Labyrinth" is a love letter to classic fantasy movies from back in the day and in particular the 1986 fantasy flick "Labyrinth", thereof the album title.

"The idea was to write songs that when played in the order they appear on the album, they would tell the overall story of the spectacular and magical movie 'Labyrinth', but with each song still being able to stand on its own" Oz says.
"But as a twist, our version of the story is more from the antagonists point of view, as I would imagine the book read by the protagonist in the first scene of the movie is as well. So by going from that angle, we found a lot of interesting stories and themes to build our songs on."

"The Labyrinth" sees Osukaru taking one step back and two steps forward into their already established AOR-with-an-edge territory, raising the keyboards and the melodies just another notch.

Oz: "I'd say that this one is our most AOR oriented release since 'Salvation', but it's also our most hard hitting rock album to date."

The album artwork was, as always, created by Oz himself and this time we see returning model Isabelle Högbacka being back as their blindfolded heroine for the first time since "Salvation" in 2012.

 

Osukaru:
Oz Osukaru - guitar, keyboards
Fredrik Werner - vocals, guitar
Lisa Eugenia - keyboards, vocals
Olof Gadd - bass
Vidar Mårtensson - drums

"The Labyrinth" will be available on CD and digital download (via City of Lights Records / Membran Entertainment Group), vinyl (via Blastzone Entertainment) and as a limited edition collector's box set only available at http://osukaru.bandcamp.com

www.osukarumusic.com

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Osukaru%2B-%2BThe%2BLabyrinth.jpg

"THE LABYRINTH" track list:
01. Maze of Mind
02. The Stories We Tell
03. Voices In the Dark
04. Edge of Night
05. It's Only Forever
06. Voodoo (Who Do?)
07. Poisonous
08. Undying Rose
09. The Offering
10. Moonlight Silhouette

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Oh dear. On one hand I am really excited because I believe these guys are a truly great band, but I am very worried about the concept. Very worried. I don't know the movie, and I don't want to know about it and I fear I don't want to hear songs about it either.

 

It's a big move from the band... I hope it's not a horrible decision. If nothing else I will listen with an open mind and hope the concept is not too strong.

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Hello Geoff! :)

Don't worry, it's not a rock opera or anything like that. We don't even name any character from the movie by name. The concept is simply just that we took some inspirational scenes from the movie and wrote a bunch of songs based off of them. Like, one song is about doing things without thinking first and the consequences that follows. The idea itself came from a scene in the movie where the protagonist is making a controversial decision but the song, as a stand alone song, could just be about someone being drunk or stressed out or whatever... it's really just about something we've all been through at least once in our lives but the conceptual idea behind it came from that scene.

 

So, if you just listen to the songs as songs you won't "hear the movie", I promise. One artist might see the sunset and be inspired, write an album and later put that sunset somewhere on the cover... that's just us with this movie. It's still a rock album with 10 tracks which you can interpret however you like. :)

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Sounds good, Oz! Like I said, love your stuff so I expect more of the same here. Glad to hear I probably won't even notice the concept. ;)

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  • 3 months later...

I love this band. I bought the album from the bandcamp and I really like it. I think the 2 singers fit good toghether. About the movie , I saw it long ago, I remember David Bowie was the villain with a glam haircut.

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Another very nice album from these guys although i think i prefer the last one a bit more

 

'Tis nice, but yeah, I also prefer their previous output. There's some good stuff here, though.

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Do you mean "Rock it up"? Yeah there were some very good songs there. "Transition" was a good album too, "Arrows is my favorite song from this band..

 

'Triumphant' would be the weakest album so far, imo, but aside from that I love the other ones. This one, I suspect will probably be slightly better than 'Triumphant.'

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Very disappointed once again with this band. Like previous releases, absolutely nothing wrong with the songs, but the male vocals completely spoil it for me. They sound forced all the time and they are out of tune in places too, as well as not mixing well with the female vocalist either, She sounds much improved than previous releases though, but I think they really do need to find a better quality male singer next time round. A real shame, as I said, some of the songs are really good.

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Very disappointed once again with this band. Like previous releases, absolutely nothing wrong with the songs, but the male vocals completely spoil it for me. They sound forced all the time and they are out of tune in places too, as well as not mixing well with the female vocalist either, She sounds much improved than previous releases though, but I think they really do need to find a better quality male singer next time round. A real shame, as I said, some of the songs are really good.

 

The odd thing is, I actually kinda liked his voice on the last couple of albums. But I agree, it isn't great here. There are some songs - namely the opener - where I just couldn't even figure out the lyrics in the chorus as I just had no idea what he was singing.

 

BUT. I actually think he is definitely the better of the two vocalists. I just don't like the female vocalist one single bit; never have. Which is huge for me, as I like 95% of female vocalists I hear (but always, 100% of the time prefer male vocalists, for the record).

 

I wish these guys just went back to the single male vocalist.

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Its actually a new female vocalist on this album

 

Ah, ok , that would explain why she sounds better ;). Still not that great though tbh.

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