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Review & Track Premiere: Obsidian Sea, Strangers

obsidian sea strangers

[Click play above to stream the title-track of Strangers by Obsidian Sea. Album is out March 22 on Ripple Music.]

Classic doomers Obsidian Sea mark a decade of existence and make their debut on Ripple Music with their third full-length, Strangers. The three-piece were last heard from with 2015’s Dreams, Illusions, Obsessions (discussed here), and with their new album, they present a tidy six songs and 40 minutes of material that ranges from the ultra-Sabbathian double-layered lead work in opener “The Birth of Fear” to the more complex proto-metallic crunch in nine-minute side A finale “A Shore Without a Sea,” to the subtly progressive execution on that song’s side B counterpart, “The Play.” Their intentions pointed squarely at the doom of olde, the focus from the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Anton Avramov, bassist Delyan Karaivanov and drummer Bozhidar Parvanov is more about traditionalism than range, but there is a spaciousness to the proceedings nonetheless, and for as basic as the elements at play might seem in their sound — guitar, bass, drums, riffs, solos, vocals, etc. — they never fail to set an atmosphere throughout Strangers that breathes new life into the aesthetic with which their working and becomes crucial to the stamp they leave on it with this material.

Strangers isn’t overly showy in terms of trying to convey some threat, and it’s not outwardly morose as plenty of doom can be, and neither is it totally defeated, but even in the brash riff of “The Birth of Fear,” there’s a sense of struggle that comes through, and as that first and crucial hook is set as an opening statement of Obsidian Sea‘s intention for what will follow, they hold to that mindset. It’s not theatrical, and it’s not melodramatic, but as “Every Heart Hides a Killer” taps Pagan Altar via earliest Witchcraft, there’s an unsettling vibe that comes across, and the band seem to revel in it in Avramov‘s next layered solo and the lumber that ensues from there, but it’s telling that they end that second cut in a subdued fashion, as it speaks to the underlying patience in their songwriting.

The kind of doom they’re playing shouldn’t be in a hurry, and Obsidian Sea aren’t. They don’t lurch exactly, but neither do they sound rushed. “The Birth of Fear” and “Every Heart Hides a Killer” both move at a smooth pace, the opener just a bit faster, and seem more concerned with establishing the course of the record than catching the listener off guard with any sudden or stark changes. To wit, the build into a nodding chug and solo part in “Every Heart Hides a Killer” is well telegraphed ahead of time, and the chorus earlier in “The Birth of Fear” is clearly placed at the outset to grab attention. At the same time, there’s something very carefully done about Strangers that comes through beneath the surface of the album. It is very purposefully divided into two sides, each of which caps with a nine-minute track — “A Shore Without a Sea” and “The Play,” respectively — and to listen to Avramov and Karaivanov‘s tones and even the raw gut of Parvanov‘s drumming, it’s clear that Obsidian Sea aren’t conjuring their sound by happenstance.

Obsidian Sea

As one might expect for a third LP, the band have an idea of their sound and how to realize it in the studio. No doubt some of it came together on the fly as is inevitable in a recording process, but the composition and delivery of these songs are thoughtful and able to engage with nuance despite being outwardly traditional. It’s in this manner that Obsidian Sea carve out their niche within the genre and work to make their sound their own in a way they haven’t before. This, obviously, is the ideal for a band in their position, and maturity suits them all the more since they have the substance of craft to support their own stylistic manifestation. As “A Shore Without a Sea” gracefully unfolds along its plotted trajectory, the band’s control over that direction is complete, and they are able sound-wise to find that place in between in such a way as to shape genre to suit the needs of their material. Again, the ideal.

“Strangers” and “The Demolished Man” function not unlike “The Birth of Fear” and “Every Heart Hides a Killer” on side A, but the title-track fleshes out the vocals with a second layer, and “The Demolished Man” most gruelingly communicates the downtrodden spirit of the album through a slower pace and a sense of arriving at its referenced vanquishing, departing from vocals just past the halfway mark and continuing along an instrumental path for the remainder of its six minutes. Both sides of the record work shortest to longest, so there’s no shortage of symmetry to be read throughout, but as it’s slower and more outwardly depressive, “The Demolished Man” makes a fitting penultimate cut, since it seems to push downward as far as Obsidian Sea are willing to go while still allowing for “The Play” to summarize the entire proceedings. Is that organ I hear at the start?

Either way, the closer fleshes out Strangers‘ sound effectively, bringing together tempo shifts like that around the 4:30 mark and stretches of softer melancholy and more tempestuous riffing all to serve the purpose of defining Strangers as a whole. In so doing, it denotes a release of marked artisanship, making use of the tenets of classic doom without sacrificing its own persona at their altar, and creating songs that find a place for themselves amid the expressive history of the genre that is as much personal as it is reaching out for connection. Their variability in songwriting is drawn together via a thread of tone and melody woven across the material, and they use this as the backdrop for bringing a doom to bear that is at once homage to what’s come before and a sign of what the future might bring. It can be a difficult outing to pin down at first, but the manner in which its spirit plays out across its run is well worth the effort of repeat listens.

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