Fact: Doom metal is designed to test your patience. It’s droning and methodical, often lingering like a stench. But, then again, that’s the point. German four-piece Obelyskkh clearly understand this, and it’s this understanding that is both their biggest strength and biggest weakness. Hymn To Pan, the band’s third record (and second for Exile on Mainstream), finds the band sharpening their psychedelic-laden doom with thrash elements and all around meaner riffs. They’ve also managed to find a way stretch their songwriting stamina a bit more here than previous outings without losing ferocity – well mostly, anyway.

The album opens with the awe-inspiring 10-minute title track where we see a melodic guitar wandering around in the darkness before being bludgeoned into submission by a concrete-thick riff. The song then descends into a sort of ritualistic chant surrounded by feedback and a circling melody. The final third is a juxtaposition of the glorious riffage with (cautiously) optimistic leads.

This trick – tempering doom’s darkness with almost airy melodies – allow Obelyskkh to paint outside the lines of doom’s grayscale with hints of color. ‘The Ravens,’ for example, features within its eight minutes a riff as black and sinister as the titular bird and lyrics like “Disappear like a funeral procession” contrasted with a watery melody and a somber piano coda. Imagine rays of light cutting through London clouds and you’re close. Similarly, ‘Horse’ opens with a sample from “The Warriors” and has what is easily the angriest riff of the entire record paired with hardcore shouts. The song stomps around by itself until the last quarter when it’s joined by a solo sounding as if it’s attempting to cut through the bong haze.

And for five out of the six tracks here, Obelyskkh’s self-indulgence works. The final track, however, pushes patience-testing beyond tolerable. The 20-minute (!) ‘Revelation: The Will To Nothingness’ could, for starters, be cut in half and be a better song for it. Sure, there are some great ideas contained within this behemoth – including the thrashy opening and the first tangential section – but overall the song feels like the band is having a pissing contest with itself as to just how much shit they can stuff into one song.

But I suppose a band having too many ideas isn’t entirely a bad thing. After all, atypical thinking created Hymn To Pan, and most of it is worth hearing. Obelyskkh are a solid doom metal band, to be sure. That said, as silly as it may sound, in order for them to be great they have to learn a little self-restraint.