One Master - The Quiet Eye Of Eternity (2009)

When you first hear this CD you are quickly taken to the early days of Black Metal with all its rawness and eeriness. One Master does a great job of capturing a timeless sound and reproducing it on their own way on a very well crafted second release called: "The Quiet Eye Of Eternity".

The album production is the typical low-fi production that most of the BM bands of the time had, it gets a few minutes to really get used to it since in the first few minutes I thought there was something wrong with my sound system, but it quickly balances out. While I'm not a huge fan of this sound, it does help a lot in creating an haunting atmosphere when it comes to BM albums.

Featuring a very grim combination of harsh screams of agony and a very dense guitar distortion the overall feeling of the album is very eerie. I can think of older Gorgoroth or Dark Throne in order to compare how One Master sounds. They even have some of the minimalistic elements that Burzum featured in their earlier music.

While the guitar work is very well crafted, the drumming at some times sounds like somebody tap dancing on top of the hood of a car (probably from the production) but it's still good enough to carry the songs. The bass guitar (like in some older BM albums) gets drowned most of the time, only to surface here and there.  Lastly, the vocal work is very solid and provides the perfect emotion and sound for the overall atmosphere of the music, something that other old school BM bands fail at, but Valder does a great job handling his duties for One Master.

Being from the USA, One Master sounds completely Scandinavian and their music can hold their own to any bands of that region in Europe. In my opinion this band is one of the current top 5 BM bands in the USA, and it's a shame they are not signed yet. "The Quiet Eye Of Eternity" will surely help this band get the attention and respect they deserve in the BM Scene. So go and get this album from their MySpace page before it sells out.

Release: 2009

Country: USA