Oskoreien Album Review: Hollow Fangs
🔥 Key Takeaways 🔥
Hollow Fangs is Oskoreien’s most focused and musically adventurous album yet, blending atmospheric black metal with classical, ambient, and post-rock flourishes.
The album delivers crushing beauty and existential dread in equal measure, making it one of 2025’s standout cerebral black metal releases.
For fans of Wolves in the Throne Room, Agalloch, or anyone who likes their misanthropy to come with melody and philosophy.
We Enter, Fangs First
Atmospheric black metal is a genre that wears many cloaks: druidic mysticism, cosmic nihilism, misanthropic nature worship, you know, the usual Saturday night vibes. Oskoreien, the long-standing solo project of Jay Valena, has always walked that shadowy line between introspection and annihilation. But with the release of Hollow Fangs, he might’ve finally bitten through.
Released on July 15 via Big Black Metal Papa (Black Metal Productions), Hollow Fangs is a lean, fanged offering: five tracks of sprawling, progressive, and deeply personal black metal that refuses to sit still.
It’s cold, sharp, and smart, but not self-indulgent. And yes, it’s still kvlt as hell.
Hollow Fangs by Oskoreien
Opening Strike: “Prismatic Reason”
This track is a sprawling, shape-shifting beast. Oskoreien doesn’t waste time with soft intros. Instead, “Prismatic Reason” begins like a ritual already in motion. Tremolo riffs swell and contract in waves, swirling into complex rhythmic interplay and haunting melodies that feel almost progressive. Kinda like what a lady might tell you when you’re giving good oral.
The drums are methodical yet dynamic. Jay’s shriek is raw and cutting, perfectly sitting on top of this carefully layered chaos. The midsection shifts into a contemplative, near post-metal atmosphere, reminiscent of early Isis, before the fury returns tenfold. It’s definitely got Enslaved vibes, cute, I know!
“Bernalillo Sunrise” is the album’s most cinematic moment. Here, there are cleaner guitar lines over more ambient textures. The restraint on display is powerful. It’s feels like post-black metal with no frills, just feeling. And it's one of the album’s most emotionally potent passages.
We’re quickly returned to the storm with Psychotiscism. This song dives headfirst into angular riffing and dissonant melodies that teeter on the edge of madness, befitting of its title.
There’s a chaos here that recalls Deathspell Omega, but with more grounding in melancholic structure. Jay’s vocal performance reaches its most intense here, shifting from desperate howls to gravel-coated growls. The song itself is unrelenting and suffocating, a sonic embodiment of mental collapse. If Goya’s "Saturn Devouring His Son" had a soundtrack, this would be it.
“Fragments” is a slow burner and a bit more layers. Structurally, it's the most dynamic track on the album, oscillating between despair and resolve with fluid grace. The interplay between Rashid Nadjib’s guitar work and Jay’s compositional control shines here. The layering is meticulous, the pacing cinematic.
It’s introspective black metal done right, sorrowful, unhurried, devastating.
“To Kiss the Viper’s Fang” returns to themes introduced earlier, the track is a climactic purge of everything the album has built toward: pain, reflection, and release. The riffs are melodic but never safe. The transitions are abrupt but purposeful. It’s a finale that leaves behind a few bite marks, for sure! It sounds like resignation, but it's really about transformation.
Sharpened and Surviving
Jay Valena and Rashid Nadjib have crafted something tightly wound and deeply immersive. Each track has its own personality, yet the album feels unified. The production remains raw enough to honor the genre, but clean enough to hear every meticulous choice.
Hollow Fangs is black metal for thinkers and feelers alike. It doesn’t scream for attention. It waits, stalks, and then sinks in with clarity and craft. In a scene crowded with gimmicks and orthodoxy, Oskoreien remains refreshingly original. You’ll come for the atmosphere. You’ll stay for the emotional excavation.
Written by: Chort the Crop Infestor
“Hi, I’m Chort I infest crops and listen to Black Metal!”
