Obsidian Key is a Progressive Rock Metal music band project that was formed in Brighton (UK) during January 2010 by multi-instrumentalist Sonic V after he put together some material for his solo-project.
After some troubles setting up their recording studio they finally started recording all the material for their first album. At the moment Sonic is playing guitars and (in studio) keyboards, bass guitars and drums and he work alongside featured artists.
Obsidian Key's musical genre is progressive rock (but a better definition would be "Free Rock") with a wide range of sonorities that goes from almost Pop ballads till heavy Metal tracks, all with sophisticated time signatures and elegant melodies (classic of prog rock) enriched by interesting and deep lyrics.
Obsidian Key is effectively Sonic V's solo project and, during recording sessions, he's enjoying the talent of various artists that help him giving more to Obsidian Key's music. To have a list of all the artists and friends who have had a collaboration with Obsidian Key's Project have a look at the page "Featured Artists".
Band's name
The name "Obsidian Key" comes from the obsidian stone, which is a stone that is born from a violent natural event, when the lava of a volcano, falling directly in seawater, cools quickly becoming a rock. This stone has very special characteristics and beauty that made it famous among the materials used for the manufacture of jewelry.
The obsidian stone is generally black color, but it can have multiple colours (the color is usually based on the quantity of minerals present in the lava and the seawater at the moment of the cooling), so like Prog Rock can assume multiple forms and musical genres.
In the ancient world, the obsidian key was believed to be the key to open the doors of "the other world". A very interesting concept of past mythology and culture. Connecting this concept to Obsidian Key's music it may become that O.K.'s sound is a key to open a new form of music that takes its origins from the past and it walks through the steps of time to en-light the future.
Influences
Every band/music project had/have influences and Obsidian Key is not an exception to this rule, even more O.Key pushes this concept to the extreme taking influences by an incredible huge amount of bands, here are some of them, but the list is really infinite and keep growing also because new inspiring music is always coming up from somewhere around the world:
Rush, Dream Theater, Symphony X, Iron Maiden, Aeryon, Black Sabbath, Megadeth, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Queensryche, Scorpions, MSG (Michael Schenker Group), MAB (Michael Angelo Batio and many other schredders), YES, King Crimson, Egg, Pink Floyd, Spiral Architect, Metallica, Satriani, Annihilator, Marillion, Jethro Tull, Genesis, PFM (Premiata Forneria Marconi), Area, Banco del mutuo soccorso, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Accept, Hellowen, Gamma Ray, Queen, Al Di Meola, Paco De Lucia, John Mclauglin, Chick Corea, John Patitucci, Paradise Lost, Blue Oyster Cult, Nightwish, Santana, Hawkwind, ELP, ELO, Jim Steinman, Meat Loaf, Fleetwood Mac (early days), Stonesour, Vanden Plas, Circus Maximus and many, many more...
