Bulgarian duo Bohzidar and Anton who make up this doom band have a background in black metal but from the first chord of the lead off song ‘ At The Temple Doors’ you kind of know that you’re safely in the slow dark arms of true doom again. This is heavy and epic stuff, nodding sagely towards the direction of early Candlemass and Orodruin, with a twist of some Isole maybe. Whatever, it is a nice welcome; thoughtful and with a sombre glow to it, a memorable grim melody slowly dragging itself through the thick riff. The vocals wail nicely, the drumming solid, the guitar work assured. The kind of track that makes you settle down comfortably for what might follow.
‘Mountain Womb’ though begins to allow a few cracks to appear. The production is a little flat, too narrow for this style of music but even with that taken into account the riff is sadly unmemorable and plods rather than moving with purpose. In addition to this, a problem with the vocals begins to assert itself in my mind. On the first track they are deceptively impressive but by the time you’re halfway through this song their restricted range is showing. Oh, they are perfectly well in tune and have a reasonably dramatic quality to the delivery but the lack of variation already niggles at me. The echo effects are hugely overused too and by the end really rather annoying. The thing is I have heard way too many mediocre doom bands with exactly this issue: Echo means epic right? Err; no. It means you’re using it to cover something and it too often leaves a veneer laid over the whole album that removes emotional impact and gives it a uniform sound that tarnishes and dulls quickly. And that is a shame here becauseObsidianSeahave more potential than that by a long way and the voice really does seem to be stronger than the presentation of it here.
‘The Seraph’ for an example of potential bounces in with a great turn of phrase in the riff that lifts the gloom of the previous shortcomings with some excellent melody and guitar lines feeding off a smile inducing rhythm born to headbang to. You do wish the more downbeat mid-section had been tweaked but the solo it breaks out into is worth it and maybe serves to highlight it. Almost as a reversal ‘Impure Days’ is a pretty standard affair until the midsection where it suddenly opens up a sadly short burst of up tempo, cracking classic metal that you can feel bubbling away just below the surface of this entire album. ‘Absence Of Faith’ , the most haunting song here similarly seems to be yearning and aching to be let off the leash into some Grand Magus stomp and bellow, and maybe that bands own journey might be a guide as to how you can go with your guts despite initial intent to follow a slower path.
Curiously, the closing epic ‘Flaming Sword’ at last uses a little harmonising to the vocals which is like a sweet breeze into a stuffy room and once more proves that Obsidian Sea do have a lot of potential as just that simple addition adds light and shade to the riffing that lets the life in. It finishes the album on a high, just like it started and thankfully it does put my niggles into a gentler perspective.
It really isn’t a bad debut at all, not by a wide margin: This duo have all they need to produce some top quality metal. The ingredients are all there before them; just a little re-balancing of the proportions maybe, attention to those vocals and a broader sound to the production and I’m sure they will create something far better. Doom is a tough path to follow and the first slow steps can be hard but they haven’t fallen yet.
(6/10 Gizmo)
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