{"id":276683,"date":"2025-07-20T06:13:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T06:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/276683\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T06:13:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T06:13:13","slug":"hibernaut-obsidian-eye-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/276683\/","title":{"rendered":"Hibernaut – Obsidian Eye Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It was only a matter of time before I found a group from my hometown to write about. Operating in Salt Lake City, Utah, Hibernaut<\/strong> plays a mixture of doom, stoner, sludge, and psych. Though the band is newer\u2014having formed in 2020\u2014its members have plenty of prior experience in the metal underground. Two of them, Dave Jones and Zach Hatsis, were even part of the now defunct SubRosa<\/strong> at one point. Hibernaut<\/strong>\u2019s sophomore album, Obsidian Eye, relates a sci-fi\/horror story about a mysterious interdimensional entity that infects, kills, and reanimates people in order to spread its influence. The promo package contains an interesting quote from producer Andy Patterson (also formerly of SubRosa<\/strong>): \u201cIn the 20+ years I\u2019ve been at my studio, I\u2019ve never had a noise\/loudness complaint, until Hibernaut<\/strong> entered the studio.\u201d What kind of music would warrant such a complaint, and is this a promising sign?<\/p>\n

Hibernaut<\/strong> wears one of two hats at all times. They tend to settle into a steady rhythm when Dave Jones delivers his vocals. His style is an uncommon one\u2014not quite singing, growling, or chanting but brushing against them all at once. But, outside of the verses and choruses, lead guitarist Matt Miller is liable to fill any and all available space with solos. They vary widely in length\u2014sometimes a quick traditional Sabbath<\/strong>ian jab but often sprawling in similar fashion to Sleep<\/strong>. The guitars also have some fun twists, like the funky distortion in \u201cEngorge Behemoth\u201d or the recurring spidery tune in \u201cPestiferous\u201d that reminds me of Kraid\u2019s lair from classic Metroid. The constant throughout all this is a formidable low end with no shortage of confident bass grooves and the no-nonsense attitude of High on Fire<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\ufeffObsidian Eye by Hibernaut<\/a><\/p>\n

In fact, the rhythm section is Hibernaut<\/strong>\u2019s secret weapon. Drummer Zach Hatsis more than pulls his weight, hammering out complex rhythms for extended periods of time and livening sections that might have otherwise felt overly repetitive (like the beginning of \u201cPestiferous\u201d). When paired with Josh Dupree\u2019s more aggressive bass lines (\u201cRevenants,\u201d \u201cVenatic Rite\u201d) the result is monstrous. The duo is just as fearsome, if not more, when the tempo slows to a crawl in \u201cBeset\u201d to accompany a deliberate, sauntering blues melody to give the album finale an inevitable and menacing tone. Overall, Obsidian Eye\u2019s more potent songwriting makes it punchier and more memorable than Hibernaut<\/strong>\u2019s debut, Ingress, which was similar in sound but with more bloat and less riff stickiness. Further, the transitions between tracks are so seamless that I sometimes don\u2019t notice that the next has begun, which makes Obsidian Eye feel more cohesive.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

However, Hibernaut<\/strong> struggles to find the sweet spot between rigidity and flexibility while constantly flip-flopping between the two. One of their greatest assets is unwavering rhythm and cadence which grants the music a hypnotic quality (particularly in \u201cEngorge Behemoth\u201d). But like the reanimated corpses in the story, some of the verses shamble past their expiration date by cramming too many lyrics atop a few looping grooves. On the other side of the coin, the guitar solos often feel a bit too unstructured and indulgent, almost like an improvised jam session. I like guitar solos as much as the next person but this borders on too much of a good thing. Even with a total runtime of only 47 minutes, there are many parts that could have been trimmed a little, or a lot in the case of the aimless feedback-laden intros of \u201cEngorge Behemoth\u201d and \u201cVenatic Rite.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sweet spot that Hibernaut<\/strong> does hit, though, is between power and agility. Obsidian Eye is hefty and fluid at the same time, with a meaty bass presence and tons of tempo shifts to keep things fresh. Lack of focus and minor bloat cause small but chronic stumbles that, unfortunately, add up over time, but I enjoy Hibernaut<\/strong>\u2019s core sound and think that they\u2019re onto something compelling. As Andy Patterson indicated, Obsidian Eye is indeed noisy, but I certainly wouldn\u2019t have been the one to complain about it. True to its name, there is a monster hibernating inside Hibernaut<\/strong> and, with a tad more refinement, I have no doubt it will awaken soon.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: 3.0\/5.0
DR:<\/strong> 4 | Format Reviewed:<\/strong> PCM
Label:<\/strong> Olde Magick Records
Websites:<\/strong> hibernaut.bandcamp.com<\/a> | hibernautband.com<\/a> | facebook.com\/hibernaut<\/a>
Releases Worldwide:<\/strong> July 11th, 2025<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was only a matter of time before I found a group from my hometown to write about.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[743,12933,12295,19160,10273,77,104415,35363,91261,269,104416,104417,104418,6080,6082,234,104419,104420,104421,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-276683","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-743","9":"tag-3-0","10":"tag-american-metal","11":"tag-black-sabbath","12":"tag-doom-metal","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-hibernaut","15":"tag-high-on-fire","16":"tag-jul25","17":"tag-music","18":"tag-obsidian-eye","19":"tag-olde-magick-records","20":"tag-psychedelic","21":"tag-review","22":"tag-reviews","23":"tag-sleep","24":"tag-sludge-metal","25":"tag-stoner-metal","26":"tag-subrosa","27":"tag-uk","28":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114884090772093090","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}