Though it's nice to know South Korea apparently has a metal scene too, that silly album title unfortunately is quite illustrative of this album's shortcomings. These guys are seriously overdoing it. OATHEAN are a black/death metal band who, according to the promo stuff, use 'folklore elements' in their music. Being the connoisseur of weird and unusual music that I am, this was enough to spark my interest. But people expecting the next FINNTROLL or IN EXTREMO shouldn't get their hopes up since this is just your basic black/death with some hokey-sounding keyboard bits added.

The black/death element isn't all that bad, sometimes needlessly complex but decent metal clearly influenced by the Gothenburg scene. It's the constant bleeping and twinkling of those bloody keyboards that eventually make this a truly exhausting listening experience. If only they had made it an integral part of their music, like NOCTURNUS (anyone remember them?) or those early demos by THE GATHERING, instead of just an annoying extra layer. Or maybe OATHEAN could have just left them out and concentrated on some roll-up-your-sleeves-metal. Now they mostly sound like a second-rate cousin to CRADLE OF FILTH or DIMMU BORGIR (but truth be told, these are two bands I don't care for to begin with).

There is some musical potential here. The atmospheric "Scent Of Longing", with some nice female vocals, shows a band in control of their excessive material. And the instrumental "Road To..." is simply stunning. It's too bad that this last song is one of the highlights on this album, since it's got nothing to do with metal (it's a piece of instrumental mood music in the RYUICHI SAKAMOTO-vein.) I hope OATHEAN will be able to iron out the kinks in their sound. Like I said, there is definitely some talent and potential there but listening to "Fading Away Into The Grave Of Nothingness" in one sitting is a tiresome experience.

- Van Hoften

OFFICIAL SITE: http://myhome.shinbiro.com/~oathean/

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