By: Daniela Patrizi
Wino & Conny Ochs | website | facebook | twitter | soundcloud |
Released on March 31, 2015 via Exile on Mainstream Records
I have been a fan of Wino‘s and Conny‘s work for a long time and I’ve to admit that when I heard that Wino teamed up with Conny to release an acoustic album made of emotional riffs accompanied by the combination of their vocals I was a bit skeptical. Despite every bias, the melting pot between the heavy music of the American doom metal legend Scott “Wino” Weinrich and the warm country sound of the German singer/songwriter Conny Ochs just confirmed that these two musicians are geniuses.
Fans of Wino and Conny know how the musical relationship between the two artists began. It was in 2010 when Wino’s doom went acoustic and he composed Adrif. He toured to promote the album and in those six weeks Conny served as driver and also played support act. The friendship between Wino and Conny started in that bizarre occasion and the albums they released demonstrated that they have a lot in common: their friendship is a matter of sharing the same weltanschauung and passions and with these premises they can play what they want.
With the stunning acoustic album Heavy Kingdom we learned that they can cross every boundary of grunge, alternative rock and folk. Together they created a sound that can’t be easily tagged. Their style is a music genre. Freedom Conspiracy is not different.
Freedom Conspiracy is their second album together and in its thirteen tracks you’ll find only acoustic guitars and intense and intimate atmospheres. The main difference between the new album and the previous Heavy Kingdom is that Freedom Conspiracy has darker moments that combined with the emotional folk rock sound create brilliant dynamics.
Among the highlights of the album there’s the opener ‘Drain’, which is a superb folk-country ballad dominated by the voice of Wino that let his well known heavy rock to emerge. The lyrics are brilliant too, especially when they sing together, “Hold on blue sky, it’s over when your dreams die”. It’s a masterpiece and one of the best moments of the album.
Another gem is ‘Crystal Madonna’, which is an older composition where the interplay between the rough and baritone voice of Wino and the clear lyrics sang by Ochs makes this track one of the most emotional songs. The same atmosphere is the main protagonist of the following ‘Shards’ that solidifies the power of this collaboration.
The whole album is permeated by a deep sense of melancholy that is evident in the intense ‘Forever Gone’, but also in the title track. ‘Freedom Conspiracy’ can be taken as example of how the power of this album comes mainly from the ability of the two vocalist to go well together and to complement each other considering their own different styles.
‘Heavy Heart’ is another great track whit a superb synergy between the two artist. The album ends with ‘The Great Destroyer’, which is one of the most melancholic tracks. In the end Freedom Conspiracy is an album about losing and finding beliefs, about the senses of loss and of love and about all the implication of being a human that deals with those feelings. It’s a deep album that offers several moments of intimacy, it is melancholic, but never sad. It offers moments of joy instead that incites the listener to fight for his beliefs.
Freedom Conspiracy is an emotional and brilliant work that proves again the talent of these two geniuses of the current music scene.
