Recommended for fans of: Decapitated, Meshuggah, Replicant
It’s the end of another month, which means it’s time for another edition of The Synn Report.
But not only is it the end of another month, it’s also very close to the end of the year, meaning that – including this one – there’s only three more editions of this column left before the end of 2024.
So I’d better make each of them count, right?
Which is why today I’d like to direct your attention to the Polish powerhouse known as Obsidian Mantra and their hybrid blend of densely-wound, Decapitated-esque riffs and galvanised, Meshuggah-like grooves.
2017 – EXISTENTIAL GRAVITY
The band wear their obvious Meshuggah inspirations out and proud on the opening track, “Deviation”, of their debut album, swaggering out of the gate with a series of jerky, elasticated riffs and taut, tensile grooves – all tinged with just the right amount of deathly aggression and an almost blackened, melodic sensibility – which set the stage for the rest of the record going forwards.
“The Weakness Deepens” reminds me a fair bit of The Hammering Process era Living Sacrifice in the way it deploys its punchy rhythmic riffage to beat you down one bar at a time (although the song’s pseudo-melodic ambience clearly owes just as much to post-Organic Hallucinosis period Decapitated), while the more atmosphere-heavy (and just plain heavy) strains of “Entering the Inner Shade” puts the focus back on moody, Meshuggah-inspired bio-mechanical grooves (especially during the song’s sinister, slow-burn bridge section).
“Voice from Within” adds both a teasing Tech Death edge and an almost proggy sense of melody to the mix – both aspects of the band which deserve more exploration, in my opinion – with the second half of the song in particular pushing the group a little more outside of their comfort zone as they shift towards a more introspective and ambient approach, after which the outstanding “Afflicted with the Plague” (clocking in at an impressively ambitious nine-and-a-half minutes) shifts things even further towards the Prog Death side of things, marrying churning, low-tuned guitars to a brooding atmospheric aura which permeates the entire unsettling, yet also oddly compelling, affair.
Sure, maybe the band go a little too Meshuggah on “Vomiting the Void”, but they definitely own it, putting the focus more on hefty groove and deathly grime, with “The Flame of Self-Condemnation” taking this a step further and adding an extra dose of Death Metal nastiness to the gnarly pneumatic guitars and an additional splash of sinister melodic atmosphere to give the whole track a more distinctive twist on the Tech-y/Proggy/Post- Death formula which the band are still experimenting with.
The album’s finale comes in the form of the staccato grooves and stomping, slow-motion grind of “Wander of the Cursed Ones”, whose second half in particular finds the band placing even more emphasis on desolate dissonance and alien ambience in a way which suggests their future ambitions may well lie in a more abrasively atmospheric direction.
2020 – MINDS LED ASTRAY
Bigger, bolder, and more bombastic than their debut… the truth is that there’s very little to find fault with on Minds Led Astray, which takes all the best bits and most promising parts from Existential Gravity and just gives them all an extra boost of piston-powered heaviness and primal hookiness.
This is immediately apparent when opener “Shield of Disbelief”, whose brooding, slow-burn rhythms and massive, muscular guitars largely eschew the more cerebral complexities of syncopated song structures and turbulent time signatures in favour of a steady build up of tension and anticipation that keeps you on the edge of your seat, waiting for the inevitable explosion (in this case an eruption of pinpoint-accurate blastbeats and jerking, Death-Djent riffage) still to come.
It’s followed in turn by the churning chugs and chattering blastbeats of “The Demon-Haunted World” – whose blend of electrifying energy, eerie melody, and unorthodox, stop-start intensity helps make it an early highlight of the album – and the moodier, groovier strains of “Ghost Hunt (The Discoverie)”, after which the first section of the record (which is broken up into pieces by a pair of ambient interludes) comes to a close with the pulsing pneumatic riffs and punchy, propulsive rhythms of “False Spirituality”.
The next segment kicks off with the discordant push-and-pull of “The Orphan’s Bloodline”, where the song’s groaning, bass-heavy low-end is matched in turn by a piercing dissonance all around the edges of the track (plus a few notable moments of almost Ulcerate-esque atmosphere), after which the twitchy Tech-Death riffage of the wickedly catchy “The First Believer” and the ferocious forward-momentum, surging drums, and gloomy melodic undercurrents of the distinctly Decapitated-esque “Circle of Mourners” provide another pair of highlights in what has already been one hell of a fun ride.
The second of the album’s two (slightly oddly placed) interludes then provides a momentary respite before the climactic strains of “Eternal Atonement” – which hints at even more as-yet-unrealised potential as it flirts once more with an almost Post-Death approach, heavy in dissonant atmosphere and discord-drenched pseudo-melody, reminiscent of the likes of Ageless Oblivion and Wells Valley – ends things on a high (and suitably haunting) note that should, if it’s done its job properly, leave you full of anticipation for the next stage of the band’s ongoing evolution.
2024 – AS WE ALL WILL
As We All Will, the group’s third album, is emblematic of why it’s so important to give bands the chance to grow and find themselves, with these eight tracks representing a more focussed, more refined, and more intense version of Obsidian Mantra – one which has doubled-down on the Death Metal side of things even more than ever.
Are they reinventing the wheel? Not in the slightest – hyper-aggro opener “What Is Not, Is Not”, if anything, leans even harder into the band’s blatant Decapitated influences (but with an emphasis more on the full-force fury of The Negation than the more hook ‘n’ groove oriented style of the band’s later years, which is where Obsidian Mantra seemed to be focussing most of their attentions prior to this) – but they are definitely putting the pedal to the metal.
“Cult of Depression” could fit in easily with the likes of Hour of Penance or Heaving Earth with the way it deploys moody layers of dark melody over an array of crushing, contorted riffs and devious, dissonance-laced chord patterns, while the stomp ‘n’ blast, sturm und drang of “Slave Without A Master” is propelled by a blistering barrage of staccato, triplet-chug riffage and belt-fed, rapid-fire snare beats, interlaced with some suitably strange strains of melodic menace.
Continuing to push the band ever so slightly more towards the extremes, and away from the more groove-oriented approach of their previous works, “Who Will Become a Murderer” is as virulent as it is visceral, a real neck-wrecker that will keep your head banging and your blood pumping as its gatling-gun guitars and artillery-sized drums punch holes in your eardrums again and again (and again), after which the subtly blackened “Condemned to Oppression” once again errs in the direction of Hour of Penance, Replicant, etc, with its gargantuan riffs and overarching aura of grim majesty.
By comparison, “Chaos Will Consume Us All” is almost a retro throwback, in relative terms, with its machine-like, Meshuggah-inflected rhythms and deviously-dissonant, pseudo-melodic hooks recalling the best bits of Minds Led Astray (only with an even darker, deathlier hue) with the subsequent strains of “Sowers of Discord” picking up on this vibe – all jerky, technical grooves and jagged, concussive rhythms that hammer their hooks into your head hard enough to cause blunt-force trauma – and riding it even closer to the edge.
It all ends with the dense, pounding guitars, thick, pulsing bass lines, hanging chords and arpeggiated melodies of “Weavers of Misery”, which builds towards a discordantly infectious, devastatingly intense, climax which brings the whole album to a thunderous close!