Obsidian Hooves - 'Sovereignty' (2020)

OBSIDIAN HOOVES - 'SOVEREIGNTY' (2020) - PITCHED AS A ‘journey through dark and rotten corridors to join the ranks of the undead’, Obsidian Hooves is yet another great project from the indefatigably creative Nicholas Turner, whose other outfits include doom band Nothing Is Real and low-fi grinders Moldering Vibration. And this one is so dark that it bleeds hell into the corrupted air around it. After a guitar intro that literally makes you see maggots, ‘Coffin Hole (Revel In Worms)’ hits the ground running, with a filth encrusted sound that brings to mind Autopsy’s ‘Acts Of The Unspeakable’, with its guttural riffs and slaughterhouse growls. Elements imported from Nothing Is Real are strongly evident in the distinctive guitar and drum sound. The latter are authentic and trigger-free, and this has the effect of bringing you into the room with the band, in welcome contrast to the alienating, overproduced gloss you hear so often these days. The dark melodies never become maudlin or tiresome, but are pregnant with threat, like dark clouds crawling across the sky.

‘Death Cult Cartel’ begins with a chaotic scramble of spidery blastbeats, before collapsing into a section of bombastic sludge, with vocals that are arrogantly demonic, like David Vincent on Morbid Angel’s ‘Where The Slime Lives’. By the halfway point the song is marching infernally on like some dark, Satanic mill, with Texorcist's barks describing the logistics of hellish mutilation and torture. Then, just when you think the song is over it gathers up and springs to life like some ghastly revenant, with a solo taken straight from the Trey Azagthoth palette. Turner’s frantic guitar solo sounds like the kind of thing that might raise up demons from the Underworld. ‘Satanic Sovereignty’ kicks off with some catchy but deeply unsettling guitar harmonies, before a scalpel-keen riff starts peeling off your skin and the blast-beating snare pounds you like a fucking mallet. The melody in the middle provides no relief whatsoever from the aural butchery. At a mere 4 minutes, this song is the shortest on the album, and seems to be over far too soon. The genius of Nicholas Turner (aka Tyrant in this band) is that he makes very long songs sound very short.

At first you might think that ‘Coffin Hole’ is the highlight of the album, but, like all the best ones, this album keeps sounding better with every listen. In fact, the best song is the cataclysmically heavy ‘One With The Thing Within’. The riffs here are colossal and awesomely doomy, like the kind of slabs you’d expect to find on a Nothing Is Real album. The doom/death crossover works very well, creating a dense sound that presses you to the ground like a physical weight. The solo here, as elsewhere, is a thing of hair-raising beauty. A sudden burst of speed in the sixth minute builds up to a threatening climax, then gives way to an eerie and sublime acoustic section, fingers flying over the strings in a way that conjures indescribably melancholic visions. The guitar playing everywhere on the album is truly inspired – the work of an explosively versatile imagination combined with classical guitar training. It speaks of darkness and death and psychological terror, painting pictures of dark caverns strewn with bones and choked with the dust of ages.

With ‘Sovereignty’, Obsidian Hooves have made a priceless contribution to the discography of 21^st Century death metal; a contribution that, if there is any justice, will be heard and remembered for as long as the scene endures. If you like any kind of death metal, then you need to hear this.

‘Sovereignty’ comes out on the 17^th July and is available now to pre-order.

 

J.Cooper

Metal Punk Inferno (2020)