‘Untold Futures’ is steeped in imagination. The album’s ethos, a portal that sucks the listener in further and further into the depths of a deeply experimental psychedelic rock journey that draws a myriad of influences captures you at a fundamental sensory level. Finding the group at their most daring state, ‘Untold Futures’ puts together a series of dark atmospheric pieces that are lengthy but focused. It’s an album of scale, a palatial sensibility prevailing over each track with a grandiosity that has you falling backwards to even comprehend it all. With each song at least seven minutes in length, the six piece record is experiential from start to finish.
Kickstarting with ‘Dilated Mind’, the album opens with heavy industrial ambient noises before thundering rock guitars and drums try to break free from the distortion. Vocals are secondary on this record, adding a haunting and ominous forewarning to what may come. It is an absolute assault on the senses, throwing a kitchen sink at you. ‘Forever Knowing’ is far more sullen, a more progressive build up that never crescendos too high to throw you off. It’s on ‘The Inner Void’ that The Oscillation start to unveil a bit more of traditional hard rock work amidst the industrial overtones.
The album’s longer records, ‘Heart of Nowhere’ and ‘Obscured’ are the most cinematic pieces on the record. These soudntrack-esque tunes, namely the former, don’t incorporate too much of the rock elements but remain as ambient interjections. ‘Obscured’, a track which ‘realies rebirth and resurrection’, is definitively the album’s most ambitious and audacious endeavour.
All in all, ‘Untold Futures’ traverses sonic territory hitherto unexplored. The dark industrial dominant record is loaded with imagination but is far from an easy listen. It’s a journey you have to surrender yourself to and allow it to take you where it may.