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Label: Regress Records Cat. No.: BTT009 Released: July 1996 Format: Compact Disc PANZER MAGAZINE Whoaa!!! Excellent, brilliant, stunning or just pretty impressive. You can call all of that to OBERON's self-titled MCD. Who would have guessed? I had no information on this Norwegian project fronted by Bard Titlestad, the one-man band. Atmospheric gothic metal with a very mature edge, very professional and very enjoyable to listen to. This MCD follows the path opened by TIAMAT and ANATHEMA's latest releases, and is just as good. Check it out or repent. - Pedro Pestana BIZARRE #10 Features the talents of Bard Titlestad from the 'land of long winters' and Bergmann, Norway. Meloncholic tunes that pull at your heart strings, stirring deep felt emotions of loss and regret. Powerful stuff, all done with neo-classical piano taking the lead and bolstered by progressive guitar ambiences. Reminiscent of fellow scandanavian romantics Dark Side Cowboys, both have a real feel for the epic. Inspiration not only comes from his emotions, but his native landscapes, which are full of dark, desolate places. Plaintive vocals reinforce the feelings of pain and isolation. Indeed, we are all islands. ELD RICH PALMER, #5 If you read the chat with Bård carefully, especially his words regarding to performed music in the preface, you must remember, nothing but feelings are of importance in OBERON's music. That's true. There's 5 tracks, however the word "ballad" would be more suitable to them, with emotional, spiritual coating. I admire Bård for his competence in building not commonplace moods in an interesting way, with care for originality and details. Everything about the record seems to be polished up to perfection though it's not music being put in a stiff frame. Sometimes, a peaceful stream of sound take a form of a psychedelic play with repeating motives, trance rythms, but every change within a track is very subtle, almost unnoticable, that makes Bård's music relaxing and cooling. The grand role here plays the piano and keyboards plus vocal - they are mostly responsible for the overall unique mood, though very residual instruments has its proverbial "five minutes" - guitar, bass, drums and even rarely a violin - they are all audiable, but mostly remain in the shadow. The sound is excellent. - Krzysztof Sadza BLACK MAGAZIN, #6 Bård Titlestad alias OBERON ist gross, blond ind hat eine aussergewöhnlich gute Stimme, mit der er seine musikalischen Kompositionen vor dem geistingen Auge zu lebendigen Bildern nordischer Landschaften werden lässt. Jedes Stück ist wie eine junge Knospe - um es mal pathetisch auszudrücken - die sich im jedem Hören weiterentwickelt, heranreift und schliesslich zu einer wunderschönen Blüte wird. Seine Texte beschäftigen sich mit dem Land und der Liebe und seine ruhige, wohltuende Stimme und die klassisch- angehauchten Kompositionen verschmelzen zu einem Ganzen, das einen sehr schnell gefangen nimmt. Ich muss gestehen, dass ich sehr überrascht war, als ich die CD zum ersten Mal gehört habe, da ich aus dem Norden Europas eigentlich etwas Musikalisches im Stile von COLD MEAT INDUSTRY erwartet hatte...doch die mir hier vorliegende Scheibe verbindet gekonnt Poesie bzw. Dichtung mit angenehmer klassischer Musik, die zum Teil auch Einflüsse des Neofolk ausweist (auch wenn diese zum Teil nur aus dem Erklingen einer akustischen Gitarre bestehen). Leider umfasst das Album nur fünf Tracks, von denen "Out From A Deep Green Emerald Sea" ein reines Instrumental darstellt. Doch gleich der Opener "Stay" und der verheissungsvolle Titlel "Love Is The Light Of The World" dürften die Hertzen der geneigten Hörer im Sturm erobern. Dies ist wahrlich ein Album zum entspannen und träumen...sich einfach hingeben und die Musik und den Gesang für sich selbst sprechen lassen. -Thomas Wacker ORGAN, #50 A meeting in the dark and murky waters where glorious Goth flirts with Progressive rock and glides along in a doomy trace of contradictions and disturbing atmospheres. Oberon, who appear to be mostly someone called Bård T, fly somewhere between The Third And The Mortal, Anekdoten, Magellan and the adventurous avant garde Goth of Rosa Crux or recent Dead Can Dance. There's a hint of Van Der Graaf angst, especially in those piano and lost-to-the-world vocal passages. Melancholic, drifting, solemn sounds, extremely proggy at times, certainly one for desciples of early IQ's darker moments, or maybe Devil Doll... IQ/Mother Destruction progressive dark otherworldness - orchestral, romantic, extremely powerful, painful, dark, lost and recommended. - Sean Organ WANTED MAGAZINE, #1 Norge verkar vara ett land där begåvningarna frodas. Oberon är ytterligare ett exempel. Vacker men ändå farlig orkestral gothrock kanske man kan kalle det Oberon gör för? Om bandet kan ni läsa bland intervjuerna så derför skall jag direkt kommentera musiken, som är välgjord, schysst producerad och spennande! Oberon är inte alltför orginella men jämfört med de flesta av kollegorna ter de seg mycket bra och fräscha. Som helhet påminner det av någon lustig anledning om gamla Alphaville (typ Afternoons in Utopia). Ruskigt bra melodier och arrangemang, rätt fantasieggande. Musikalisk har de även en hel del gemensamt med Dark Side Cowboys. I ljudbilden finner man bla pampiga pianon och gitarrer. Sångaren har en ung, men klangfull röst och på de ställen de bryts får man intrycket att han är rörd av texten, ty det kan man bli. En bra skiva som rekommenderas varmt. METAL CORNER, 1997 (bk) Wunderschöne und orginelle romantische Musik, die mit den gängigen Gothic- Klischees (erfreulicherweise) wirklich überhaupt nichts am Hut hat. Statt dessen spiegeln die sorgfältig komponierten und instrumentierten Songs starke Emotionen wider und erzeugen eine gelegentlich melancholische, manchmal auch düstere oder spannungsgeladene Atmosphäre - am ehesten mit einem Soundtrackvergleichbar, besonders beim Instrumental "Out From a Deep Green Emerald Sea". Aber auch die anderen Songs können voll überzeugen und stellen unter Beweis, dass weder musikalische "Trend-Versatz-stücke" noch Maschinen echte Kunst jemals imitieren, geshweige denn ersetzen können. - Blanca Kröner SCREAM MAGAZINE, #36, 4 pts. It's beautiful. It's majestic. But it's not metal, and it's certainly not ambient shit either. It's just fantastic melodies, played in an epic way, with dreamlike themes and floating lyrics. Oberon will and must be great! - Bjørn Nørsterud ORKUS MAGAZIN, #9/97 Oberon gehört eindeutig zu den Fällen, bei denen es sehr schwer wird, die Atmosphäre der Musik in Worte zu fassen, da sie viele unterschiedliche Emotionen hervorruft und gleichzeitig hell wie dunkel , traurig wie relaxt ist. Hervorzuheben ist auf jeden Fall, dass Bards Kompositionen sehr viel innere Sicherheit und Ruhe ausstrahlen und unheimlich natürlisch und romantisch sind. Da ist kein überflussiger Keyboard Kitsch, die Musik ist schlicht und einfach für sich selbst nahezu perfekt.Dass es sich bei Oberon um keine oberflächliche Kunst handelt, sollte jedem klar werden, der das Interview in diesem Heft liest, sowiel Tiefe und ehrliche Gefühle findet man heute wohl nur bei den wenigsten Vertretern des Genres. Schon jetzt eines meiner absoluten Lieblingsalben anno 1997. Für romantische Seelen ein muss! - Thor Wanzek THE ORIGINAL SIN, #13 (Belgium) One of the most beautiful sounds which reached my CD-player are coming from Norway. OBERON is a musical project from one man, namely Bard in where he projects lifevisions in atmospheric sounding synths. The voice of Bard is so perfect you can easily compare it with DEAD CAN DANCE-frontman Brendan Perry... yeah, that beautiful. Musically, you are dropped in a sound which is like you are in a forest meeting all kinds of Tolkien-creatures. OBERON's music is something you will only hear in fairytales or dreams. Bard has just released his debut mini-CD via the German label, Prophecy Productions. This music will really scare some people cos they were probably not aware that music can put you in such other dimensions, in such a trance. I even do not know if I really can call it music, it sounds more as the soundtrack of a perfect life... - Didier Becu DARK OATH MAGAZINE (Portugal) Although Oberon, Bard Titlestad's one-man enterprise, has been around for some time, this was the first time I heard of it; apparently, I was really missing out on a lot!! Oberon's melodic wealth is quite astonishing and provided by a multitude of individual, yet blissfully complementary, layers of arrangements done on keyboards, acoustic guitars, cello, piano, electric guitar, discreet choirs and finally Bard's exquisite clean and bold bittersweet vocals. The stronghold of Bard's musical creations should be the perfection that he gives to them; each detail has been carefully thought out, yet their complexity does not hinder the emotional fluency of the songs in any way. The quality and beauty of Oberon's atmospheric workouts are simply amazing and not one moment of the disc looses an inch of intensity! It's all smooth as silk, and heavenly enveloping... I suppose you'd like me to give out a quick definition for this... Well, the label's bet is 'Passionate Romantic Art'. I don't think I can come up with a better one myself, but here's a guess: 'Somewhere between Goth, Dark Wave and Neo-Classical yet far beyond all of it, Oberon seems to draw parallels with the likes of Depeche Mode, Drown for Resurrection, Voyage or even Mike Oldfield, coming across as a well balanced combination of all four!', how's that?! Heck, I was really impressed with this... I think I could expend a whole day listening to this over and over again! Absolutely divine and an essential purchase for any fan of spiritual, magical and atmospheric music! This CD was licensed from Regress Records and Prophecy Productions will also be releasing Oberon's full-length (?) CD, hopefully (!!) sometime soon!