Obsidian Tongue - Volume III - LP Gatefold

6 years can be a lifetime in metal/music years. Though we may not notice it, life takes flight the older we get. We may relocate. Get married/divorced. Bring life into this world. Bury our loved ones. 6 years can see a lot of change and a growth in the hearts of men.

It has indeed been that long since Maine's Obsidian Tongue amazed us all with their 2nd full-length album, The Nest of Ravens in the Throat of Time. During this time, the driving force behind this inspiring duo, Brendan Hayter, has underwent a mountain of change both in his personal life and within the band itself. Having enlisted the gifted talents of drummer Raymond Capizzo (Falls of Rauros), OT has progressed greatly both rhythmically and compositionally, finding this unit seemingly feeding off of each other with colorfully rich textures and highly emotive riff work that empowers and possesses the power to inject melancholy into the listeners life by way of beauty and innovation.

That is a mouthful, but the simply titled, Volume III stands up and demands attention throughout the mystical movements on this dynamic and at times violent album. Brendan's vocal lashings effortlessly decorate the pulsing emotions that arise from these songs, with his searing screams being at the forefront of the attack, he then turns on a dime to enchant with seriously developed pitch sung passages to keep the pull of the music strong on the heart strings. Lushly atypical chord work, which has always been at the core of OT's music, once again portrays world building visions... a sonic trait most often born at the hands of mythological bands like Summoning for instance, yet Obsidian Tongue build their own brutal world where the emotions are raw and the way they torment the mind is confusing/amazing.

Obsidian Tongue is a pure and lethal outpouring of feelings through music and it hits deep within every time. Black metal. Post black metal. Shoegaze. Atmospheric metal. Obsidian Tongue is not any of those things, yet they are all of those things and Volume III finds this band eager to purge and worthy to conquer.