Album Review: Oskoreien – Hollow Fangs

Band: Oskoreien
Title: Hollow Fangs
Label: Independent
Release date: July 18th 2025
Country: USA
Format reviewed: High quality digital recording

Album Review: Oskoreien – Hollow Fangs by Michelle

A genuine intrigue of mine considering the cover artwork for Oskoreien‘s latest album is derived from the medieval-ish artstyle of it, which while it doesn’t exactly fit this band’s sound, I still found it really beautiful with the amount of colors it holds, an aspect hardly found in most black metal album covers.

Moving on, the album starts with ‘Prismatic Reason’, which quite catched my attention from the very start with its atmospheric yet fast melody echo-ing through my headphones. The vocals fit perfectly with the intrumental, almost like two puzzle pieces clinging onto each other. The song takes a more calm approach around the 2nd minute, yet the harshness emited still remains buried into this beautiful track. You can almost feel the agony and sorrowness transmitted to the listener by the instrumental roaring into your ears, the lyrics “Burdened by the endless void of this human condition, yearning for meaning, burning with anguished pride” being the keywords to the despair and desolation this album opening song is communicating.

The record continues with ‘Bernalillo Sunrise’, yet another calm start-off before the apparition of the vocals. The rythmicness of the drums and guitar riffs fuse beautifully as the change in tempo at 1:30 accentuates this song’s brutal yet melodic approach. The slight distorsion of the vocals add a nice touch to the overall ambience of this album, intensifying both the rough and tranquil aspects of it. The accentuated tremolo picking from near the end of the track is the cherry on top of this 7 and a half minutes of pure bliss.

‘Psychotischism’ keeps the similarity from the previous two songs, the thematic of it being pretty self-explanatory with not just the title, but also the lyrics which express a deep sorrow caused by the broken state of mind, the slow turn the instrumental takes at some point quite highlighting this characteristic.

‘Fragments’ has a really distorted and messy intro, which I find really interesting considering it actually has a tune you can enjoy. Not long after the song itself starts, an agglomeration of atmospheric and ambiental elements fusing together and crafting a gloomish yet enjoyable melody. The guitar solo at around the 3rd minute is absolutely flawless as the vocals join in not long after, only increasing my overall liking of this record.

The album ends with ‘To Kiss the Viper’s Fang’, a harsher and more straightforward appearance with the rushness of the drum beats and guitar riffs, yet the song takes a sudden silent and calm turn not long after, before changing tempos again and further having me under a spell.

After taking a look at the lyrics from most tracks, it’s pretty damn obvious Oskoreien are speaking out their emotions through music. While I may not be familiar with their discography besides this album I had just reviewed, I definitely will dig more into their works thanks to this amazing and well-done record! 9/10

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9/10  Epic Storm
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