A couple years ago, Belgium’s Oathbreaker were just another band that had some skill in merging shimmery melodies with blastbeats: an alluring and even comforting sound, if not the most original. In the three years between Eros|Anteros and their latest record, Rheia, they’ve expanded their scope without losing their rage. The album transforms their own abilities and the breadth of the much heralded—and derided—black metal-shoegaze fusion.
Unlike many of their peers, Oathbreaker play with a hardcore directness, and even their more melodic moments draw more from post-hardcore than Britpop or shoegaze. “Second Son of R.” and “Being Able to Feel Nothing” in particular are two of the most furious tracks the band’s ever recorded, blazing through and never losing momentum even when the pace settles down. Comparisons to Deafheaven are inevitable (they were labelmates at one point), and they’re not always accurate, but there’s no denying that the surging breakdown towards the end of “Immortals” is modeled after “Luna.” Oathbreaker make it their own by suggesting an ultimate payoff, only to cut off before ultimate ecstasy. They’re vicious with their metal, albeit more discerning with how it’s dished out.
Caro Tanghe’s vocals are where Oathbreaker really distinguish themselves, and it’s her awakening in particular where Rheia makes the biggest leap. She can scream her ass off, no question, but she’s able to lead the band by changing her tone. “Nothing” relies more on her choral sensibilities, which never make the rest of the band feel bloated or frilly. The acoustic refrain “Stay Here / Accroche-Moi” sees her taking on a ghost-country approach: She slyly suggests pain that she’s more explicit about elsewhere. And even her screaming is varied—the end of “Second Son” is a constantly escalating hysteria, different from her more straightforward attack most of the time. By not defaulting on a raspy yell all the time, she fills in the band’s softer sections, which would be awkward with merely a hushed screech.
“Needles in Your Skin” is Oathbreaker at their most dynamic, and makes for the album's centerpiece. It skews the “loud-soft” formula of post-black metal; Tanghe howling over clean guitar isn’t any less of a force than the full-on black metal blast that follows. In the middle, the band transitions to a hardcore chug, and layered under Tanghe’s hopeless mantra, “How could you go without me?” her desperation shines through. It’s simply devastating. Tanghe makes such a simple question, one we’ve all asked, harrowing in its relatable power.
On Rheia’s second half, Oathbreaker break down structures even further, sometimes drifting away from metal altogether. “I’m Sorry, This Is” ushers in the shift, where the unease comes not from the guitar but from the wordless voices of Tanghe and added field recordings. It knocks “Where I Live” off its axis, making the raging black metal tempos that the album’s built on seem alien. “Begeerte” closes the record with airy vocals and submerged industrial drums, like Triptykon’s “My Pain” minus the goth-metal schmaltz. It’s an unsettling counterpart to intro “10:56,” which features Tanghe at her most soothing. “Begeerte” is different enough to where calling it and “10:56” bookends isn’t quite right. It’s more akin to returning to your hometown after a devastating disaster—or a devastating exposure to life outside it. Rheia never really returns home, and that’s the point. It’s meant to capture how our bodies fail us and the wandering nightmares that result with no neat resolution.
While still fairly beholden to black metal, Rheia shares a core ideal with Cobalt’s Slow Forever and Deafheaven’s New Bermuda: They broke out of black metal’s stylistic confines, using it as a launching pad more than a set of totalitarian marching orders, and in the process became emotive, powerful metal albums. Without sacrificing extremity, they all captured the spirit of metal, not just the sound. It’s not that genre records don’t hold their own power; it’s that an album like Rheia can do so much more by crossing and uniting several paths.
