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Yawn.

Heard it before.

Yawn.

Heard it before.

Yawn.

That was my overall reaction to this album. Repeat ad nauseam for 50-odd minutes and you have this waste of plastic. I've never bothered researching South Korea much, but I'm assuming it's not a communist mud-hole like its northern counterpart, so these guys really have no excuse to write such utterly clichéd "feel sorry for me, I'm so sad and Ronery".. hang on, that's right, Kim Jong II is the psychotic dictator of North Korea, not South Korea.

Basically everything on this disc has already been written by Dark Tranquility (in their keyboard-laden Projector/Haven wilderness years) and Dimmu Borgir. Now, I have nothing against being unoriginal, but only if it involves plagiarizing something good. What these guys have done is simply take the least interesting elements of what I habitually label "Century Media Metal" and made a habit of watering it down even further. So, you get the stock-standard Gothenburger riffing, unimaginative drumming (with mandatory thin, shitty kickdrum triggers) and the usual raspy vocals added to make stupid people think it's black metal. Oathean offers nothing particularly unique except the occasional bit of "exotic" clinky traditional-sounding interludes which remind me of the soundtrack from House Of Flying Daggers. Except here, they're made using the same hokey midi-synth they use to drown the guitars in during the metal tracks, so rather than sounding moving and powerful, it's just cheap and bland. Much like the rest of the album in that regard – just check out the song titles and try not to laugh. Don't worry, if you have the misfortune to hear this disc, you'll be too busy sleeping to laugh.