Album Review – Raven X – Essence Without Light

Artist: Raven X

Album: Essence Without Light

Genre: Gothic Death Metal

Released: 13th March 2013

Track listing:

01. Erebos
02. Angel Of The Night
03. Take The Pain
04. Broken Light
05. Blood Of A Bitch
06. Immortal Beloved
07. Essence Without Light
08. Poet
09. Soul Suicide
10. Sleepless Nights

These guys were kind enough to send me their album to review and I must say, I really enjoyed it. This two-piece Ohio-based band really impressed me. I have a lot of respect for two-piece bands because of all the extra work that goes into creating their music. It’s also very exciting for me when I come across a band that has a unique sound and female vocals! Nÿx does impressively powerful death growls but also beautiful and enchanting clean vocals, while Khâos combines heavy death guitar with great melodic riffs and instrumentals.

Their musical style is a mash up of gothic and death metal with hints of industrial and black metal, with a dark moody tone throughout the album. The album is extremely dynamic, with brutal tracks such as Blood Of A Bitch, slow and spellbinding songs like Essence Without Light and even tracks that combine these elements, which brings me to my two favourite tracks on the album.

My favourite tracks off the album are definitely Broken Light and Immortal Beloved. Broken Light starts off very slow and almost eerie with beautiful clean vocals and leads into a very melodic black metal chorus. Immortal Beloved is a bit faster than Broken Light but also combines the clean vocals and eerie melodic guitar riffs with the death growls and heavy guitarwork. I also really enjoyed Take The Pain, which is one of their heavier songs with lyrics I can relate to from my younger years.

The entire album is definitely very dark and beautifully composed. The lyrics are very emotionally driven and I think many people can identify with them. I highly recommend it for those who enjoy darker sounding metal.