Published: August 29, 2013

Black Metal has an ample range of sonorities inside of it, being almost a self-style out of Metal. If VENOM guys could look at this back in 1978, they would be proud of their creation. And another son of the English team comes to the light (please, no ironic puns here), the North American group OBSIDIAN TONGUE, with their second coming, “A Nest of Ravens in the Throat of Time”.

In the very same vein of ABIGAIL WILLIANS and WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM, and some touches of old ULVER in the vocals, so we can label their music as Atmospheric Black Metal (or as Depressive Black Metal to some), the band’s (a two guys band, to be more clear) makes use of high pitch vocals, guitars arrangements sometimes aggressive and other ones in an acoustic way (with some good riffs and solos here and there), pounding drums (nor so extreme all the time, but using a more slow pace), and bass only doing its work without trying something more different than the usual. It’s nothing new, but has its value.

A raw sound production awaits our ears, but not as harsh and inaudible as some CDs we heard before (it’s better than the one we heard in DARKTHRONE’s “Transylvanian Hunger”), so the music is very listenable, but some cleaning would bring the sound to a higher step. It’s not so bad, mind you all, but it would be better, no doubt.

Their music is good, indeed, but long duration of the tracks, as well as little variations on them makes the audition somewhat of boring. The acoustic moments really are the great moments of the tracks, from they break the monotony. You have that all of six tracks (taking more than 7 minutes) present great moments, being the better ones “Brothers In The Stars” (with some astonish guitar riffs and good work on drums), the oppressive “My Hands Were Made to Hold the Wind”, and “Individuation” (with some faster moments and with good shrieked vocals contrasting with some normal ones, and the track is worked than previous ones).

A good band, indeed, with great musical ideas and potential, but need to put it out once and for all.