Published: October 18, 2013

“Atmospherical black metal” seems to be quite a hot thing what it comes to genres in the United States nowadays, and the band in question, Obsidian Tongue, also is a player in that same field. This album, A Nest of Ravens in the Throat of Time, has been blessed with quite a lengthy name and is their second full-length release, of which the previous one was last year’s Volume I: Subradiant Architecture. As has been the case with other atmospheric black metal bands, this one, too, does not offer any diabolicalities in their lyrics, but instead focus on the subjects of feelings, nature and dreams. I can already see in my mind’s eye the crow pack of my dreams shifting through the garbage cans of Time and Space for leftovers.

The songs has clear parts with more intention towards atmosphere and parts with more aggressive banging. Usually this kind of dualistic separation works well, at least for yours truly, as I tend to get bored fastly with fully pure blasting and seldom albums with only some vague atmospheric soundscapes can keep the interest up either. In this regard Obsidian Tongue’s music seems to work well, and the balance between these changes seems to be well thought off. Structurally the songs aren’t that predictable either, which is a bonus. The cleaner vocals seems to be done in some sloppy way and they struck out a bit odd at times, not always though, but then again the more aggressive and raw vocals fits the songs quite well.

Yes, the songs do have quite atmospheric and good sounding parts in them, but for most parts the epic feel that I was left to anticipate just does not arrive,  excluding the last, self-titled, song on the album, which really is excellent regarding it atmosphere.  For the end result, the album is pretty okay, but not anything special though.