Oskoreien - Oskoreien (2011)

In Pagan lore, the Oskoreien were the only connection between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead. In the black metal genre, Oskoreien is the solo project of Jay Valena from Valencia, California, who released his first self titled album last year on Seventh Seal Records.

Oskoreien is truly a solo effort in the most literal sense as Jay wrote all music & lyrics, performed all the instruments and recorded, mixed and mastered this recording, he even took all the nature shots which grace this sharp looking fold-out digipak. Not too bad for a guy that's just 22 years old nowadays.

At just a little over eleven minutes, 'Illusions Parish' kicks the album off with thundering percussion, raw distorted rhythm guitar and barbarous screams, while mostly retaining its brutal edge the song also has a bit of that post metal sound appearing, which seems to be very popular amongst North American black metal bands, and although I don't know what it implicates exactly, I'm sure someone would dub this Cascadian black metal too since Wolves in the Throne Room seems like an influence. Regardless of exact sub-sub-sub-genre placement, the song has impressive riffs and more than enough atmosphere to go around. 'Entropic Collapse' is fairly similar in overall structure, though the song starts out far calmer, progressive and post like, and also features some echoed cleanly sung parts a few minutes in. Again some really great riffs can be heard through its nine minute duration and the guitar solo in the middle is a fantastic hair raising one too, which is eventually followed by a gorgeous ending.

'River of Eternity' is a full on acoustic piece with some nature samples running in the background. At almost six minutes its an absolutely beautiful piece of nature inspired music that takes me to a place of tranquility and comfort. 'Transcendence' is the albums longest song at over thirteen minutes and similar to the last song it opens with a warm acoustic melody before diving into more blasting fast material similar to the first two songs. Although by no means paling in comparison, in fact just as dynamic as before, this one is made even more epic in its overall scope by the inclusion of some operatic vocals around the eight minute mark, which amazingly are pulled off well too. 'Ashen Remains' concludes the album with a six minute piano piece, which sounds very classically music inspired with an overall mood that seems very dismal, yet beautiful in its overall delivery.

Although just five songs and forty five minutes long, 'Oskoreien' is a massive album of black and post metal with progressive, acoustic and classical characteristics coming together to form something truly special and memorable. Fans of Wolves in the Throne Room, Alcest, Altar of Plagues, Skagos and Fen will be all over this.

As it stands the album can be downloaded for free HERE, although you can also go with the limited edition package deal, which scores you the album in a digipak format, a t-shirt and a 8x10 nature shot for just $20. I guess you know which version I went for.