Throughout my time of doing these reviews, one of the things that I love above more than anything is how widespread the style of metal is throughout the entire world where we get music from places that I never would’ve thought of before. Today, it still astounds me that there are bands in countries like Ukraine creating their own flavor of metal that contributes to the global underground scene, and it’s bands like Obrij that truly make the worldwide search of new metal truly fascinating.

It doesn’t take much for a few guys to come together and create metal by any means whatsoever, but should they create something worth listening to then it becomes a whole other thing entirely. Going into the debut EP from Ukraine’s Obrij, I wasn’t expecting much given that it’s a debut and they’re not always the best that a band can be a lot of the times but especially when it’s a newer band trying to get their place in the underground. Yet, Obrij takes their first step as a band with great success and clearly immense pride as the four tracks that we are given with “Altar of Utopia” are far from dissatisfying. Obrij doesn’t waste much time fucking around and simply goes for the throat with an onslaught of death metal that’s neither overly brutal nor too watered down for an “easier” listening, but kept just at the right amount and “Altar of Utopia” does a pretty solid job. It also makes Obrij stand out as not just another unknown band copying some greater death metal group that they worship. The EP stands as a collection of intense rhythms and what you might expect from a band’s very first outing, but there are certain flavors and finesse in these tracks that don’t allow Obrij to fall into the pitfall of becoming too boring overtime as it’s always interesting the entire way through. Everything comes together quite fluidly to allow “Altar of Utopia” to show off the band’s strength, yet there’s plenty of room to be made and after hearing this record plenty of times it’s very easy for me to say that it won’t take very long for this group to catch up.

Debuts are very much a gamble when it comes to new bands as you come across them because they can be the reason as to whether or not you return to the band in question should they release future material. With Obrij, though, I’m definitely going to have to keep my eye on them because with “Altar of Utopia” they showed a glimmer of talent and the potential to create something in the future. I suggest you listen to this album to see what I mean, and I’ll be happily waiting for some of you to join me.

LISTEN to “Altar of Utopia” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Obrij on Facebook here.