The band name is inspired by the idea of metal music’s potential to improve one’s life. Obsidian is a pitch-black volcanic glass that is used in pagan tradition to absorb negative energies, and encourage mental/spiritual clarity. Music is widely considered a universal language, and for band members Brendan James Hayter (guitars/vocals) and Greg Murphy (drums/vocals), their musical ritual is the Obsidian Tongue.After 2 demos (2010 Demo and the 2011 Subradiant Architecture Demo), their debut album “Volume I: Subradiant Architecture” was recorded and mixed onto vintage tape machines in March 2012 at Mystic Valley Studio in Medford by Alex Garcia-Rivera. The record was tracked in 4 days, mixed in the following week, and mastered by New Alliance East in Cambridge. This analog recording approach has truly justified Obsidian Tongue’s live energy, and will be used on all future recordings.

Founding member and guitarist/vocalist Brendan James Hayter: “The first string of compositional attempts I made in the extreme metal style has naturally congealed into a 50 minute record I chose to name Volume I: Subradiant Architecture. These songs truly came together in a connected fashion, so it was only proper to call it a Volume. Furthermore, Subradiant Architecture is a term for the imaginary “Shadow World” that much of the music takes place in, the consistent closed-eye visuals this music has given me since I first began to explore it. It suggests that the gods designed and built this lightless realm in our psyche like a piece of architecture, for Man to explore the origins of his despair and draw wisdom and power from symbolic images. In this life such emotions as despair, anxiety, abhorrence, and the uncertainty of my fate both in this world and the next, have been my greatest guides. It is my sense of duty to honor the evolution I have undergone through these chronic internal storms, and through the catharsis of extreme metal music.”