Obsidian Aspect

Prior to receiving this promo, South Australia’s Obsidian Aspect had not popped up on my radar, though after listening to their take on the death metal genre they now have my full attention.

The quality of the music on this album is very good but it isn’t necessarily what makes the album itself as good as it is. It is the overall feel of the material that makes this album what it is. There is a delicate balance between the all out death metal attack and the smatterings of solid groove that play off each other throughout the album’s entirety.

The drums on Obsidian Aspect are sequenced though most of the time you would be hard pressed to pick it unless you were really paying attention or trying to find things to complain about. For the most part they are tastefully programmed and create the illusion that there is someone sitting behind a kit.

Particularly worthy of note are the performances by guitarists Rufus and Pete who tread the fine line between technicality and accessibility very well. A lot of the material is quite technical in nature but this never gets in the way of the music itself. This is a quality too often ignored.

Praise must also be given for the quality of the production. Being a self released album the band seems to have put a lot of time (and money) into making this album sound the way it does. It sounds nothing like what you would expect a self financed album to sound like and could easily be mistaken for a release from a well seasoned band with lots of studio time under their belts.

The biggest, and probably the only, detractor for me with Obsidian Aspect comes in the latter parts of the album where the illusion of human drumming is shattered through the use of overly mechanical sounding drum sequences which almost verge on the industrial. Ultimately this is a minor gripe and is hardly a deal breaker but none the less, there is a clear distinction between the plausible sounding sequencing early on and the completely implausible sequencing which do provide a clear contrast against each other.

All in all Obsidian Aspect’s debut album is a solid slab of heavy and catchy death metal from a promising Australian band that is worthy of your time.

Originally submitted to http://www.themetalforge.com