Band:	Our Survival Depends On Us
Album:	Melting The Ice In The Hearts Of Men
Style:	Doom metal, Sludge metal
Release date:	February 08, 2019
A review by:	Auntie Sahar

01. Galahad
02. Gold And Silver
03. Song Of The Lower Classes
04. Sky Burial

Discovering new visual artists as a result of awesome album artwork is pretty fun. But discovering new bands as a result of the work of visual artists you're already familiar with can be even more interesting.

Indeed, I discovered Our Survival Depends On Us earlier this year when Panegyrist's Elijah Tamu, whose painting I've become an enormous fan of, shared that he had done the album cover for their newest album, Melting The Ice In The Hearts Of Men. If you're at all familiar with Panegyrist and the theological themes they explore, it's easy to see when listening to this new album from Our Survival Depends On Us why Elijah would lend his visual talents to such a band. Cut from a cloth similar to Panegyrist, these Austrians conjure a grandiose, majestic doom metal sound with their compositions that oozes of passionate spiritual energy and a desire to reach for the higher planes. It's packed to the brim with everything you would expect, or would probably desire to hear, out of such a style: powerful, propelling riffs, one hell of a rhythm section between drum and bass, beautiful, intertwining guitar melodies, and soaring, almost operatic vocals.

Melting The Ice In The Hearts Of Men is without question a very well written release, and one of the types where you find yourself discovering something new to it with each subsequent listen. If there's any weakness to it though, it has to lie in the fact that the music often feels as if it's pushing towards a climax that never really happens, leaving a series of crescendos and buildups that, while certainly highly effective, never quite "pay off" or "explode" as one might wish them to. Perhaps this wasn't quite the intent of OSDOU with this album, and that would make sense, as it is above all a pretty mellow listen, but it would have been interesting nonetheless to see what happens when they crank the knob on the overall intensity factor just a wee little bit.

For one reason or another, when initially hearing of the upcoming release of Melting The Ice In The Hearts Of Men, I thought it was a debut album from a new band. This is not the case, however, and now being very intrigued with OSDUU as a result of this album and seeing they have three other full lengths behind this one, I no doubt have some more exploring to do. In a way though I'm happy that I made that misjudgment, as it allowed me to listen to this album from a more standalone perspective without comparing it too heavily to their prior material. Taken just as itself, Melting The Ice is a stimulating ride through the capabilities of five musicians who know how to use their weapons well and aren't afraid to show you. If the goal here was to get people to sit up, pay attention, and eagerly anticipate their future releases, the plan certainly worked on me.

Melt the ice and dive in.