Oathbreaker hail from Belgium, and while their existence in the world of hardcore has been brief, they have made quite a statement. Oathbreaker’s debut album Maelstrom fired a shot across the bow of the hardcore genre. Their latest release, Eros/Anteros, takes their obvious dedication to speed and brutality, and adds some shoe-gaze flavor to the mix. Oathbreaker don’t lost their hardcore edge, they just expand it into some new territories.
The first thing of interest on Eros/Anteros is the length. Most hardcore bands spewing out ten tracks do it in record time. Oathbreaker’s album clocks in at around thirty-five minutes. Alone that wouldn’t be interesting, what raises and eyebrow is that the time comes from two specific tracks. The nine minute “The Abyss Looks Into Me” and the eleven-minute “Clair Obscur”. These are the songs where Oathbreaker really flex their experimental wings.
A dark wash of feedback, titled “Beeltenis,” opens Eros/Anteros. Oathbreaker break a cardinal rule of hardcore by opening with something darker, more ambient. The waves of feedback are charming, delicate even. They build to a slow crescendo, only to be shattered by “No Rest For The Weary,” a brutal number whose speed brings the band dangerously close to the new wave of black metal. Just as it teeters on that edge, Oathbreaker open the track up into a slow burn. It only lasts for a moment, but it’s enough to break the guitar rampage.
“Upheaval” and “As I Look Into The Abyss” are more typical Oathbreaker fare. Fast, hammer-riffs snaked by equally as fast soloing. The drums pound, the vocals scream in tortured insolence, it’s the new age of hardcore driven home by kids who obviously live for it. Nothing in these songs is outside of Oathbreaker’s comfort zone, which seems to be by design. Oathbreaker might stretch on this album, but they want to be sure we know where their dedications lay.
“The Abyss Looks Into Me” opens its nine-minute journey by being creepy. A slow, methodical riff, bathed in more feedback, plays like the stomping foot of a demented giant. Vocalist Caro Tanghe is performing something more akin to chanting, than singing or screeching. This Omen-like creepiness continues through the song. While the vocals vary in their level of chanting-to-screeching, the music remains dark and foreboding. My favorite part of “The Abyss Looks Into Me” comes about halfway through. The noise ends, the hardcore stops. In its place are single notes, played for dark effect, and backed by vocals that are haunting. Eventually “The Abyss Looks Into Me” cracks back into an easier hardcore finale, which is too bad. It drains the power of this quiet middle section.
After “The Abyss”, Eros/Anteros deals out the easy “Condor Tongue”. Beyond that, the album opens into something much more intriguing. “Offer Aan De Leegte” has Oathbreaker stepping into Enemy Of The Sun era Neurosis territory. This jam is all textures. Layers of guitar work building a sonic disturbance over crashing drums and harsh vocals. The almost Gregorian Chant chorus that ends the song is a little giggle inducing, but it doesn’t effect the overall impact. “Agartha” is a switch between Oathbreaker’s brand of hardcore, and softer shoe-gaze work. When the vocals switch from screaming to clean, they become quite feminine. The duality of that is very effective.
The end of Eros/Anteros is the most breathtaking track on the album. “Clair Obscur” is gorgeous, and definitely a direction I think the band should follow. The lion’s share of the song is downright gloomy. Built on deliberately melancholy guitar work that moves between simple strumming and single notes punched in for effect. The bass is constant, a thump that adds another layer of the unnerving. The vocals are down in the mix, so far so that they sound like a distant, sad voice, somewhere in the center of all this heavy misery. Just as this dreamlike state is at its zenith, Oathbreaker bring in the harsh brutality, ending the song with their brand of violence.
Oathbreaker’s faster, easier, hardcore work is well executed, but feels beneath them by the time the album ends. Clearly the band has their foot planted into something more interesting, and they need to feed that side of what they do. Stepping outside of your arena is never easy, but those are the pains of great art. Eros/Anteros is a great album, one that could have been a brilliant one if Oathbreaker had left the two-minute hardcore jams alone. Plenty of bands can handle that, few can orchestrate the kind of musical monstrosities that make up the latter half of Eros/Anteros.
