This UK deathcore band has been busy over the last few years in terms of writing and playing shows.  Osiah’s last full-length album in 2021, Loss, I felt was pretty damn monstrous and their best album.  The band somewhat falls into the category of technical deathcore and while there are those prevalent influences, I find the band more in the brutal death metal category, due to the plethora of blast beats Osiah pounds into our skulls.

Kairos is being branded as the band’s fourth full-length album, which is somewhat misleading.  Back in February 2023, they released a five-song EP called Chronos, which was quite bludgeoning and a release I enjoyed immensely.  As I write this, beginning of December 2023, after the seventh song, “Guardian”, the five-song EP, Chronos, are the last 5 songs, therefore this release is 7 songs, not 12 songs of brand new material.  This review is solely based on these new seven songs – wanted to get that out of the way early on.

“A Great Nothing” starts off with a nice heavy opening buildup and then once Ricky Roper lets out a killer growl the song gets into a mid-paced bludgeoning equipped with terrific-sounding drums, courtesy of Danny Yates.  The song gets into the beatdown deathcore groove with a variety of vocal tones from higher register screams to gutturals.  The 2-minute mark brings forth a scorching blast beat with some of the gutturals coming through very powerful as if he wants to come through the mic and eat my head – not cool….Seriously, excellent vocals and the variety of tempo shifts and the ending slam beatdown is terrific.

“White Feather” is a super ferocious number starting with terrifically fast and triggered as fuck (TAF) drums, but the double bass does hit super hard and the double bass over the insane blast beats, gives the song and these moments gravity blast beat feels.  Erupting into a killer slow down slam will have pits erupting from here to Timbuktu.

“Kardashev Denied” needs to be heard on your AirPods or headphones first, before listening to any other song on this ep.  But keep it on low, it will explode your brain.  The perfectly timed opening growl with the bludgeoning mid-paced musical opening is one for the ages.  It does not quit.  Right out the starting gates, this song is here to pick you up by your suspenders, twirl you around a few hundred times, like a tetherball, than drop you down so you can run around in circles for hours on end.  The beatdown slam is killer and then right into more vicious blast beats.  The start and stop slam with speedy double bass at the 2.30 section is here to keep all you drum trigger fans happy like a pig in slop.  Excellent low end vocals towards the end of this song are also a highlight.  Chris Keepin, alongside Ricky, provides some excellent guitar riffing with Andy Mallaby adding that extra layer of heaviness with the bass.

Kairos is excellently produced for this genre of brutal music.  Crisp, all the instruments and vocals mixed in cohesively and the production is loud AF, there’s also a few 808 bass drops on here too, in order to blow out your windows.  The last several Osiah releases have had some very cool and colorful covers.  The artwork here is black/grey/white, going for a different theme, but no less striking.  Osiah are on fire with these last few releases and is an exciting band who are progressing as songwriters as well as not letting up on the gas pedal.

[Visit the band's website]

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