Orbel – Lur Hezea (Album – Usopop Diskak / Medication Time Records)

Genre/Influences: Ethereal, Industrial.
Format: Digital, Vinyl.
Background/Info: Three years after Orbel’s debut album “Hegan” the French group delivers a second opus featuring eight songs.
Content: It’s not an easy job defining the sound universe of Orbel. The opening track sounds dark and intriguing, briefly evoking Massive Attack with ethereal vocals on top. The Ethereal aspect appears to be a red line all over the album featuring heavenly, female, voices and Basque. Sound-wise you’ll discover heavy, Industrial, like guitar play mixed with dark atmospheres and slow rhythms.
+ + + : Orbel’s sound universe has something fascinating and mysterious. They bring different influences together resulting in a kind of ‘Apocalyptic-Industrial-Ethereal & Post-Rock’-sound. It makes the particularity and originality of the work while the vocals have this bewitching sensation.
– – – : I regret there are only eight songs featured while some of them are pretty short.
Conclusion: Orbel is an interesting discovery dealing with an interesting mix of Ethereal and Industrial.
Best songs: “Irentsi”, “Orbain Irekiak”, Heriozko Giltza”.
Rate: 7½.
Artist: www.weareorbel.com / www.facebook.com/weareorbel
Labels: www.usopop.com/fr/usopop-diskak/ www.facebook.com/usopop / www.facebook.com/medicationtimerecords
Listen to “Lur Hezea”:
About Orbel
Orbel is a darkwave / trip rock group based in Bayonne, France. The band released its debut album “Hegan” before following up with “Lur Hezea”, released November 4, 2022 on Usopop Diskak and Medication Time Records. In May 2023 Orbel issued a remix companion, “Reworks”, gathering eight reinterpretations of “Lur Hezea” tracks by artists including worriedaboutsatan, Drowse, Mondkopf, Almeeva, Lucian Moreau, El_Txef_A, Tom Beaudouin and Lumi.
Support Side-Line
More people read Side-Line than ever, and there is still no paywall and no advertising. Readers pay for it instead - from $5 a month.
Why we ask
Advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations we have not put up a paywall, and we refuse to add annoying advertising, so we need to ask for your help. Side-Line’s independent journalism takes time, money and hard work to produce, and we do it to push the artists we like, who are equally fighting to survive.
Handled by PayPal.

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.
