Oblivion Beckons

Prosthetic Records (2008)

By Mark Visco

BYZANTINE's latest release, Oblivion Beckons, has a little bit for everyone. No matter what type of metal or rock you like, these four guys from West Virginia will satisfy all your musical needs with this album. With their hard hitting and catchy guitar riffs, melodic chorus’ and rhythmic drumming, they’re a very talented and diverse band.

The band opens the album with an interesting intro and uses tracks like "Oblivion Beckons"’, "Nadir"’ and ‘Centurion" to show their metal roots, while “Renovatio” shows the acoustic side of BYZANTINE, which is equally as good.  This band is definitely a different breed of metal all together, which is best displayed in “Deep End of Nothing”.  They close the album with my favorite track on the whole cd. I feel the song ties the whole album together and caps it off with one last song riff and scream.

The low tuned, palm muted and fast paced guitars makes this CD as good as it is, not to forget the very diverse and melodic vocals. There’s no doubt that Byzantine is a very talented band and have been since their first studio album in ’04, but this album puts the last nail in the coffin. BYZANTINE decided to break-up for an undetermined period of time earlier this year, but hopefully well have more music from BYZANTINE coming our way in the future. Final thought from one metal fan to another, go out and get this CD, it’s worth it.