Venerate gave Riven by Ravens fourteen songs to carry across the West Coast, and the road came back with them. The Central Valley quartet learned which parts gained force through a venue PA, which songs demanded greater concentration onstage, and how quickly studio precision could change once four people stood in front of a crowd. Their return with Hunter arrives while those lessons are fresh. Brian now has a professional studio inside his house, Joe and Mikey are involved earlier in the writing, and a second tour is already taking shape. A sensible comeback would probably concentrate on proven strengths. These six rough mixes reveal a band using that stability to become stranger.
My early copy of Hunter contained six of its planned seven tracks. Paul, the band’s drummer, described them accurately as rough static mixes. Megalith remained in production, while the running order stayed open apart from Unearthed leading into Buried and Forgotten. Several songs already possess firm identities; others still carry competing possibilities.
Paul prepares roughly eighty percent of each drum arrangement before recording and reserves the remaining section for decisions made during the session. The figure sounds oddly precise for a method built around spontaneity, which is probably why I like it. Brian’s studio allows an idea to reach the recording immediately, then gives the group time to reconsider it later. That freedom can produce discovery and endless revision in equal measure. Hunter currently sits on the productive side of the equation. The songs carry evidence of experimentation, yet each experiment has grown from an identifiable riff, rhythmic choice or vocal performance.
The familiar version of Riven by Ravens remains closest to the surface on Look Up and Breathe and A Scar Is Born. The former carries the dark, measured scale associated with later Slipknot, using controlled pacing to hold its tension. The latter is the most accessible song in the batch, built around a direct commercial pull sharpened by anger. They establish the band’s hard-rock center quickly, leaving the acoustic textures, synthesizers and doom pacing elsewhere on the EP to widen it.
If one of these rough mixes had to be released tomorrow, I would choose Salt in the Eyes. Brian began the song with a clean riff, and that restrained foundation keeps a small degree of vulnerability underneath its heavier sections. His vocal sounds physically strained during lyrics about the pain of looking back at the past. The performance makes that subject convincing before the production reaches its final form. A dense mix could easily bury the relationship between the clean guitar and the vocal effort, so preserving that space will matter. Right now, Salt in the Eyes has the character of a future sleeper favorite. I realize predicting a sleeper before the EP even has a sequence is slightly ridiculous. I stand by it.
The confirmed transition from Unearthed into Buried and Forgotten provides the clearest evidence of the band’s new reach. Unearthed spends two and a half minutes with dark synthesizers shaped by eighties film music and the industrial sounds that followed it into the nineties. Kellii Scott of Failure contributes drums, bringing a recognizably different touch while the track remains connected to Paul’s wider rhythmic approach. Buried and Forgotten then carries that electronic tension into heavier territory. This song currently asks for the greatest amount of patience from the listener. Several ideas are still competing for emphasis, and the completed mix will need to establish a firmer hierarchy. Its ambition created that uncertainty, which gives the band substantial material to shape.
I initially called Buried and Forgotten the heaviest track in the batch. The five-and-a-half-minute Dwell corrected me through doom-metal pacing, screamed vocals and a structure that allows pressure to accumulate gradually. Its duration gives the band room to sustain heaviness instead of spending it through a quick climax. Dwell already sounds unusually settled for a static mix, especially beside the more fluid construction of Buried and Forgotten. Put it next to A Scar Is Born and the scale of Hunter becomes clear: one song reaches for immediate impact, while the other tests how long the group can hold an audience inside a slower form.
Megalith remains the missing piece. Paul described it with the kind of enthusiasm that usually comes with several words a newspaper prints only after midnight. I heard zero seconds, so it receives zero adjectives. Its eventual position could alter the pace of the entire EP, particularly with the opener and closer still undecided. It may also make my declaration about Dwell obsolete, which would be a fair outcome after writing about a record this early.
The unfinished sequence currently contains several versions of Riven by Ravens: commercially direct, electronically atmospheric, rooted in hardcore and capable of extended doom. The final mixes need to protect those distinctions. A uniform modern-metal polish would flatten the very range that makes this return interesting, while Brian’s control over the engineering gives the group a rare opportunity to preserve it. Buried and Forgotten needs the most definition; Salt in the Eyes and Dwell already know exactly where their weight belongs.
My judgment of the completed EP will wait for Megalith, the sequence and the finished mixes. My judgment of the comeback is already settled. Riven by Ravens have returned with greater confidence in each other, a broader writing process and enough studio freedom to challenge the boundaries established by Venerate. Hunter still has several crucial decisions ahead, yet the seriousness of the project is already present in the risks these six songs are taking.
All information provided is prepared in accordance with editorial standards and is intended to offer useful insights for readers. Please note that the opinions, interpretations, and evaluations expressed by the author may substantially differ from the viewpoints of our readers or the general public at large, and we respect the diversity of opinions.
