IBYSS are an Industrial Metal group from Düsseldorf, Germany. The two-piece band's debut album, "Obsidian," was released independently this year.

Some bands try to convey a sense of heaviness through the sheer volume and intensity of their music, but "Obsidian" is much more minimalist in its approach. The band uses a variety of ambient effects to compliment the guitars and percussion, but the sum of the parts conveys a sense of hollowness in is sound. It's probably exactly what the band was going for, with the majority of the album's tracks having a distinctly cold, mechanical vibe throughout, on top of the gritty attitude imposed by Jens' vocals and the band's emotionless riffs and percussions.

"Weakness" is the closest thing to a traditional Metal song here, and it certainly has a lot of power behind it. However, it never really establishes any real momentum and starts to drone on after a while, and not in a good way, though "New Counter" does a bit better in this regard. In their effort to maintain a constant, inescapable atmosphere of bleakness, some tracks often linger on individual ideas ("Weakness," "Monolith") longer than is necessary, and become rather forgettable. I get the concept of "loops" and such, but one can stand to hear repetitive, soulless musical passages for only so long before losing interest. On the other hand, "Last Stitch," "Like A Knife," and "Carrion Crow" stay sufficiently straightforward while still mixing it up a bit, and each song bites and crushes with machine-like precision. Lyrically, "Monuments Of Ferocity" is one of the album's more opaque songs, but the song has a very hypnotic quality to it, in both the subdued, spoken-word sections as well as the heavy guitar parts, which are warped by a strange ambient effect.

"Obsidian" has some good moments in it, and would likely interest fans of groups like FEAR FACTORY and GODFLESH, though it feels like there are aspects they could improve on, mainly the plodding nature of some songs. Overall, however, it's a good start for IBYSS, and should be seen as a sign of good things to come for the band.