Band: Lay Siege
Release: Obolus (EP)
Release Date: 06/08/12
First off, the vocals on this record are ear-splittingly brittle and at times remind you of how easy it is to forget the necessity of a great vocalist nowadays. ‘Obolus’ is a record brimming with angst and pure rage which never feels forced or like it’s doing the getting angry-for-the-sake-of-it routine that you come to expect with a lot of metal bands at the moment. What sets it apart are the full throttle guitar riffs fused with the fantastic screams of Konrad Barrick who at times sounds inhuman and all the better for it.
Some bands’ music hits you like a train at full speed – fast paced and aims right for the jugular – but Lay Siege take a different approach. With their sluggish yet energetic style mixed with a healthy amount of breakdowns, they leave you wanting more and keep you intrigued and that’s a big compliment considering how homogenised some metal music has become recently. ‘The Ferryman’ is a track which sums Lay Siege up, three minutes worth of pace-changing brutality which never becomes boring or stale.
The EP has everything to some extent; the tracks are all a reasonable length, the slower tracks like ‘Snarling Teeth’ provide a side-splitting ambience and the faster and more energetic offerings like ‘Solitary Confinement’ give us a glimpse of how the band’s live shows may turn out. It’s a really promising start and for a relatively unknown band, ‘Obolus’ might be an important stepping stone.
If these guys can keep the quality as high as this when they release their first full album, then it’s safe to say we can expect big things to come from Northampton.
8/10
Reviewer: Greg Spencer
