nihq My initial thoughts on this Obtest album were ”can it get any more mediocre?” – yet, for some reason, I kept returning to it. There is very little on display that immediately hooks the listener, except maybe the catchy chorus bit of the first track. The music in question conglomerates a variety of styles – traditional heavy metal, black metal, some folk, and even a bit of thrashy aggression – without falling under any precise genre tag. It is hard to tell where the BM sound ends and heavy metal begins because the band has, over the years, become very adept at fusing these influences together seamlessly. The work is so devoid of typical genre clichés that this further complicates classification.

It takes time to get acquainted to the overall soundscape. The good impression is made over a span of a dozen listens, and undoubtedly many listeners will never get that far. In a world full of music, why invest your time in this? One reason would be the careful and surprisingly intricate songwriting style. If I were to summarize Obtest, I would bluntly call it the band that creates good songs out of mediocre riffs. On their own, many of the ideas in the songs are either palpably bad or merely forgettable, but when fused with the right things before and after, simple power chord strumming is suddenly the most wondrous thing in the world. This happens a lot on Gyvybes Medis and is often complemented with tasteful lead guitars and solos which add tremendously to the atmosphere of the album.

Although I briefly mentioned folk in the opening paragraph, and even though the band is often lumped under the eerily vague “pagan metal” quasi-genre, it must be stressed that Obtest is light years away from the Finntroll lot. Melody on the album is entirely based on guitars, with no synths or native instruments used, and as I previously hinted, the stylistic mix is so tightly woven that there are no overt campfire moments. This is not like Arkona (Rus) who manage to use approx. 75 variations of that same “Perun’s Celestial Silver” intro riff on every album and make a career out of it. Beating that dead horse is so commonplace nowadays in “folk” metal that it warrants special attention if a band does not do it.

If I were to mention one negative aspect about Gyvybes Medis, it would have to be the vocals. They deliver a good raspy sound somewhere halfway between black metal gurgling and plain singing, but the monotony turns somewhat irritating during the course of 43 minutes. The vocalist never takes a turn towards a more evil sound, nor does he stray into clean vocal territory except at a few odd spots. This is either a bad compromise or simple indifference about vocal arrangements.

Despite the dull vocals, I recommend this to anyone with a spare week on their hands.

(originally written for Metal Archives)