The Owls Are Not What They Seem

Hearth

The Owls Are Not What They Seem

Dark Holler Arts (http://darkhollerarts.com/)

Release Date: November 11, 2016

Shadow Woods Metal Fest 2015 introduced me to The Owls Are Not What They Seem. The name’s a mouthful and their sound is an earful. As black and white images flickered behind them, The Owls (ANWTS) used various instruments, including a digeridoo, to create a madness that transported me into that realm where strange things happen and only witchcraft can explain it.

I guess I could call it Gothic Mood Metal or Gothic Horror Metal but those are just labels that don’t describe the experience with any accuracy. My idea of horror involves blood and guts and serial killers, but I was schooled by a horror aficionado after I scoffed at a gorgeous, moonlit mural in a woodland.

Apparently, such a mural is considered horror. I see it as melancholic, dramatic, and right up my alley. Exciting even and whoever is horrified by that needs to stay away from The Owls (ANWTS).

Very few bands can recreate a live show on an album. There’s an energy that compression destroys, that digital technology erases, and I’ve found that I’ll see a live show that I loved and the album leaves me cold.

Brian Magar, guitarist for The Owls (ANWTS) has this to say about the new album Hearth, “I believe our new album captures our “live” sound a bit better. We made a conscious effort to push this. I think you’re going to dig it.”

And dig it, I did.

The songs bleed into each other, sometimes a cacophony of sound, but the hum of the live performance rides underneath and ties the songs into one theme. You must see them live to understand as words cannot describe the images that the music draws forth from the subconscious.

Fortunately, The Owls (ANWTS) will be at Shadow Woods Metal Fest 2017. I hope they’ll be on the Woodland Stage (hint, hint), but I’ll take a live show of theirs any way I can get it. You should check them out by getting your Festival tickets here .

You can also check out Hearth here:

And you can connect with The Owls (ANWTS) here.