Weekly Album - Week of 09/17 - 09/23 - The Third Age

This week I listened to The Third Age by Ottawa. Ottawa is a hardcore/grindcore offshoot of early '90s emo band Current, who I hold in very high regard. The story goes that Current was tired of being disliked by the hardcore scene for being emo (remember that being emo at the time was still somewhat of an insult) so they set out to make some really aggressive and thrashy hardcore. And aggressive and thrashy hardcore they did make. The whole album comes running at you like it is about to assault your ears. I'm quite impressed by the musicianship on this album; not because it is very technically challenging (Although some of it certainly is. I think if I tried drumming to this album I'd be panting from exhaustion) but coming from the context of the band's work as Current. The contrast from Current's more calmer sound in comparison to Ottawa's raging instrumentals shows that the band has incredible range as musicians. Even the vocalists screams are that much more aggressive, and he was already screaming quite aggressively, his poor vocal cords. The songs themselves are nothing particularly special, just some very good hardcore that bordering on grindcore. This is also I think the shortest album I've ever listened to, clocking in at 13 minutes and 55 seconds. That is right, this album doesn't even hit 20 minutes! It makes it quite fun to listen to, as you don't even realize that the album ends until you hear the spoken word clips at the start. This is another thing to mention; throughout the album are these clips of spoken word taken from various media. I think most of it comes from some version of the Lord of the Rings, although I'm unsure if it is from some audio book or Ralph Bakshi's animated version. Either way it came as quite the fun suprise to me on a first listen. This is a fun album to listen to due to the short length. It is certainly one I am going to put on if I ever need some high energy music while doing something. 8/10