Review: “Self Titled” by Olesin

Olesin is a forest in eastern Poland, a place of ruined palaces with lions, libations, fights, suicides, drownings, mysterious candles, and the birthplace of figures who changed the course of history. A place of hunting returns. Just like home. A perfect name then for a mysterious collective offering a raw, chaotic and Bergmansk form of Black Metal, channeling the turbulent and haunted essence of their origins?

Dark whispers introduce “I” before unsettling synths buried in feral screams, frantic percussion and frenzied riffs burn the ear drums like a battery acid. Everything sounds like it’s being performed live on the floor of a basement torture chamber hell, the plague winds swirling from the open entrance to the outside world. Strangely however it’s not as raw sounding as it could be and there is at least some semblance of mixing to get the levels right and match the nightmarish vision with something that isn’t quite full on bedlam. Make no mistake, chaos is the order of the day and the bizarre choral voices sound like a male voice choir in a church that is about to get burned to the ground.

There is something that sounds like a saxophone in the caustic sounds of “II“, the brutal roars of the vocals more like feral rantings in the vein of something you might expect from Snorlax. Haunting fleeting lead guitars appear between savage riffs before wind chimes and synths ensure the piece transcends into some kind of occult ritual. It’s like the moment that everything is at peace, one with the earth as the virgin has been sacrificed, blood soaking into the dirt after a moment of violent anguish.

That moment is very much the calm before the storm of “III” as the rhythmic patterns churn and burn with abrasive guitars and eerie synths. Another all out assault on the senses that bludgeons with bursts of tempo change, it has a spoken word moment of calm before the hammer shatters the mirror once more and a brutal final passage causes the world to burst into flame.

If you’re looking for something that might just raise the dead then this is it, Bergmansk Black Metal that is as chaotic and raw as it is avant-garde. It’s a purists dark desire and best served with a glass of red wine in front of a roaring fire after a stressful day during which you wish you could burn your colleagues at the steak without getting your ass hauled to prison [7/10]

Track Listing

1. I
2. II
3. III

“Self Titled” by Olesin is out 31st October 2025 via Devoted Art Propaganda and is available over at bandcamp.