Osiah
Loss

Every time I’m ready to signal the death knell for deathcore, along comes a release that kinda gets me excited about the genre again, whether it’s a veteran band like Despised Icon coming back from the dead or a newcomer like Anime Terror. Right now it happens to be the Unique Leader duo of Mental Cruelty‘s A Hill to Die Upon and the third banger of an album from the Uks Osiah, Loss.

The UK has a surprisingly strong slam/deathcore/downtempo scene headed by the likes of Ingested, B;acl Tongue, Infant Annihilator, Bound In Fear and such, but with Loss, I think Osiah has elbowed their way into the conversation as one of the UK’s best deathcore bands.

I first heard the band a few years ago with the 2013 single, “Perennial Agony” (the Blazing Saddles sample still gets me every time), so I purchased the subsequent albums, but they never really sunk in, being just solid deathcore. However, with Loss, everything has been cranked up; the production (from the band’s own Andy Mallaby), the cover art, the songwriting, the delivery, and of course, the breakdowns. All of it magnified and better than any of the prior albums.

After the intro “Realm of Misery”, you get 12 more songs and 47 minutes of no-nonsense, straight for the throat, modern, death metal-tinged deathcore with all the expected tropes. They don’t overthink it or litter it with needless fluff or even keyboards (which I don’t mind, I love bands like Lorna Shore, Mental Cruelty and Shadow of Intent), just a pure beatdown, with some really strong breakdowns.

Early standouts include “Paracusia”, “Queen of Sorrow” “Temporal Punishment” and the title track. The middle and back end of the album has the absolute banger “War Within Our Walls”, “The Ominous Mind”, “Echoes” and “Already Lived. In fact, the whole album is pretty darn strong and hits hard from start to finish, especially if you are a fan of deathcore and its predictable paradigms.

[Visit the band's website]
Written by Erik T
June 11th, 2021

Comments

  1. Commented by: J. Mays

    People are going to start thinking we only review deathcore! I’m with you, though. Just when I think that scene is over, a band comes along and rocks it. I dig this, too, but not as much as the Mental Cruelty.


  2. Commented by: F.Rini

    Erik- great review. I’m really digging this album and it’s their best. Deathcore seems to almost be back on top. These bands do ridiculous in album streams and merch sales.


Leave a Reply

Privacy notice: When you submit a comment, your creditentials, message and IP address will be logged. A cookie will also be created on your browser with your chosen name and email, so that you do not need to type them again to post a new comment. All post and details will also go through an automatic spam check via Akismet's servers and need to be manually approved (so don't wonder about the delay). We purge our logs from your meta-data at frequent intervals.

  • Ashen Tomb - Ecstatic Death Reign
  • Symphony Of Heaven - Ordo Aurum Archei
  • Fupa Goddess - Fuckyourface
  • Ensiferum - Winter Storm
  • Mercyless - Those Who Reign Below
  • Kings Never Die - The Life & Times
  • Maul - In the Jaws of Bereavement
  • Nasty Savage - Jeopardy Room
  • The Mist From The Mountains - Portal - The Gathering of Storms
  • Massacre - Necrolution
  • Abramelin - Sins of the Father
  • Arkona - Stella Pandora
  • Infern - Turn of the Tide
  • Obsidian Mantra - As We All Will
  • Theurgy - Emanations of Unconscious Luminescence