Oathbringer hails from Serbia and everyone agrees that this could be already the best record in 2022 that comes from Serbia. Their music could be described as a mixture of old-school heavy metal, with lots of traditionally influences and few epic/folk moments. And, yes, they cleverly involved and crafted some very cool folk like vibes in their style. And, on the other hand they have some doom references but that’s quite obvious in traditional heavy metal style. There are references here to many bands.

Tales of Glory is their debut full-length full of surprises! Each songs sounds like a well-crafted jewel and each song has its own surprise and vibe. Some songs are faster, some more doom-like or ballad like it depends from a song to song and from a topic to topic I think. But, the most important think is that the whole album sounds quite good and that the compositions are linked.

The music is obviously based on ”heavy” guitars riffing and strong vocals, but there are some keyboards here and there, more or less these keys leading to some folk-like melodies here and there. There are some references with Visigoth especially in the leading song Moria. I have to say that this song has the strongest effect, but yet the entire record sounds quite great! Also, I love the song called The Ring, since it the slower one. And, yes, this is the second band that have based some of their lyrics on Tolkien works which I found actually very cool. One think is for sure SRB has one more band that truly could stand in the front-lines with other bands from Europe or USA.

Well, some may say that I gave such a compliments to Oathbringer since they are coming from SRB, but no their new effort is indeed a great piece of work, a little masterpiece well-shaped in 37 minutes! There’s no question this is already the best album in 2022, at least that comes from Balkans! I cannot wait to see them live, Oathbreaker really deservers to performed alongside with Claymorean on Keep it True!!!

Marko Miranovic (8)

RTR Records