The Finnish, now London-based, wine-connoisseur-gone-black-metal act, OENOS, has been on our watchlist at Tuonela Magazine since the pandemic EP, “Musta III” (2020), and now, it’s time to get down and dirty with the latest installment in that finely bouqueted discography. Sami Tuohino, the man behind this intriguing project, is on a mission to write songs under the influence of various wines from around the world and then name the songs after the bottle – and if this modus operandi is not something to pique your interest, I’m guessing you must be one of those strait-laced Puritans who have totally missed the point of turning water into wine. The latest independent OENOS release is entitled “Mavro V,” with the word “Mavro” standing for “black” in Greek as well as for the indigenous, dark-skinned Cypriot grape variety. The Roman numeral signifies that this is the fift EP overall, and this time, it is comprised of only one song that clocks in at around 40 minutes. This EP was released on August 20th, 2025, and the Bandcamp profile is rather reticent about this new endeavor, but I managed to gather from somewhere else that this album was written during two weeks of isolation in September 2020 and was then left to simmer and wait for a more poignant time. The time is now, and since this new treat is basically just one gargantuan monolith with the caption saying that it is a journey to healing, let’s plunge right into it and see what it is made of.
The song kicks with a tad chaotic, atmospheric intro that slowly becomes more and more minimal as it progresses, featuring a spoken-word sample from the 1959 short film, The Faces of Depression. The vibe is poignantly cinematic, echoing the mood of horror films and video games alike. There’s something very Akira Yamaoka-esque in the unsettling atmosphere, and in my books, his contributions for the Silent Hill franchise rank as the epitome of poignant soundtrack work, the best ever. So, the song and the album set out on a rather firm footing. With the intro clocking in at around 6 minutes, I guess it probably should be called the first movement, or maybe even the first stage of healing.
What follows is a section of slow-crushing riffs with robust doom and post-metal leanings. The dramatic arc in this monolith of a song is quite ingeniously crafted, with all these different motifs and movements biding their time without falling into the trap of sounding redundant. Before the riffages risk outstaying their welcome, the song throws in some nice dynamic shifts – and the dynamic range is pretty impressive, ranging from ambient, piano-driven sections to chaotic and intense blast-beats. That range applies to the vocal department, as well, with the delivery ranging from beefy gutturals to Mike–Patton-esque cleans, even. There are so many haunting sections in this monolith that it’s kind of pointless to single each of them out. You’re going to have to listen to this beast in one go, anyway.
Needless to say, this type of long-form art is not necessarily everybody’s cup of tea, and with this particular endeavor being quite a mind-fuck to boot, it might be best to give yourself a minute to unpretzel your brain after the first spin. In this day and age, you cannot avoid feeling that the corporate climate treats music as if it merely possessed some ever-diminishing marginal value, which is mirrored by the ever-shortening formats: first, we jumped from the album format to those 3-minute radio singles, and now, we can barely concentrate on a 15-second TikTok video. Releases like this are nothing short of flippant statements to the establishment: fuck you and your consumerist bullshit. Whether or not the artist himself actually meant this 40-minute epic to serve as an elegant middle finger to the 3-minute radio-format culture, it surely is one of the most meticulously crafted sonic kicks in the corporate balls I’ve heard in a good while. “Mavro V” is a worthy addition to the already impressive OENOS catalog.
Written by Jani Lehtinen
Tracklist
- Mavro V
Lineup
Sami Tuohino – all instruments
Label
Independent
