When you look at the amount of successful solo bands in doom, death and black metal there are not many out there apart from the likes of Burzum. But now Peter Scartabello and his dark ambient solo project Sky Shadow Obelisk - puts a whole new twist onto these extreme genres giving the listener a terrifyingly scary atmosphere to indulge their ears with. Yes, it is as spooky as it sounds, and it will make you shit your pants as well as bang your head!

Although Sky Shadow Obelisk in only two tracks long, these two tracks together add up to just over 26 minutes of metal. This not only shows off its blackened death metal roots, but also adds a progressive element to the music. Sure, it’s not going to sound like Blackwater Park by Opeth. But it sounds like a slower version of bands like Bleeding Oath and in some cases like the mighty Varg Vikernes himself. Musically it’s what you would expect to find in your basic black metal album, but if you delve deeper you find a chunkier and punchy sense to the music, instead of overly distorted riffs which sound like a wasp in a jar.

Also Peter takes on more of a death metal style voice with this, as the big squealing and gut wrenching growling isn’t quite coming through in “Sky Shadow Obelisk” and “Ex Oblivion”. Never the less, the style of vocal which he pursues adds a darker and more hellish touch to the heavier side to the music. I think to compliment the change to the lighter and mellower riffs and sequences a smoother and calmer approach is needed to the music to give it a sense of going somewhere and structure.

Musically this album is a really good black metal release. To improve on this though the vocals need to be more frequent and change slightly between verse and choruses. You don’t want to go just all Brutal with a few words spoken. You wont to mix it up a bit and put something different and fresh round every corner. Sky Shadow Obelisk could be awesome if they took this into consideration, and it would make them more noticed in the black metal community.

If Sky Shadow Obelisk added a few more songs and ideas into the mix they could be a well recognized black metal band. With more ideas, riffs and vocal lines you will be able to create a monster like metal masterpiece!