Review by Sonny for Obsidian Sea - Pathos (2022)

What an absolute killer intro to opening track, Lament the Death of Wonder, a track that combines doom metal with stoner and progressive rock for a roller coaster ride of a song. This momentum is dissipated a bit by ensuing track The Long Drowning that takes a little while to get into it's stride, although it does have a nice solo towards the end. The album as a whole has a greater stoner/psych/prog influence than their earlier material and there isn't anything inherently wrong with that, but it feels a little inconsistent at times. It's the heavier tracks like the aforementioned opener and Mythos that initially appealed to me most, but there is just so much variety to their doom/stoner template so it never feels like they are retreading the same path on every track and the more I explore the album the more I discover. The production is very good and has a nice clarity and performance-wise the trio are spot-on. Just occasionally I feel that the band resort to a bit of noodling for noodling's sake where I would rather them just get on with laying down another killer riff. The last couple of tracks really up the prog ante and are where things get really interesting, suggesting a possible new direction for the band which may make their next release very interesting indeed. Obsidian Sea are definitely a band who are spreading their wings with this latest release and more power to them.