Emerging Band Spotlight: Opal in Sky    

The first things that come to mind for many people when they think about metal music and metal bands or artists are snarling and shrieking guitars, abused drum sets, filthy breakdowns, brutal riffs, and vocalists screaming into their mics. Another quality most often associated with the heavier subgenres of metal music (e.g. deathcore, doom metal, black metal, heavy metal) is the common stereotype of depressive, deeply angry, or downright gruesome lyrics to match the viciousness of their sound.

However, in more recent decades, some genres of metal have started emphasizing healing and resolution in their lyrics and capitalizing on complexity in musical composition.One such band is Opal in Sky. The band consists of two main members, twin brothers Dylon and Tyson, who derived the name of their project from their Polish surname, Opalinsky. They have been rapidly amassing social media fame and regular listens on multiple music streaming apps following the releases of their 2022 debut single “Aurora” and their song “The Blight” off their 2022 EP of the same title.

Opal in Sky uses traditional aspects of the deathcore metal subgenre, such as challenging riffs, elaborate weeping melodies, down-tuned instruments, echoing breakdowns, high-speed and heavy rhythms, and a range of growling, screaming, and other vocal techniques, which are clear and familiar to metal and hardcore audiences.

But their most defining quality is the positive and uplifting lyrics they compose to resound over their heavy, powerful music.

Opal in Sky utters cathartic and elegantly written cries for healing, hope, optimism, and making peace with one’s past, often using nature as the basis for analogies and symbolism for growth.

While art coming from a place of pain can be highly therapeutic for both creators and audiences, Opal in Sky stands out with their goal to plant seeds of positivity through deathcore metal.

“Aurora” uses empyrean phenomenon to describe growth through hardship, and in “The Blight,” the primary theme is overcoming challenges and becoming a stronger version of yourself, using lyrical symbolism and metaphors heavily drawn from plant life, decay, and night skies.

Throughout 2023, Opal in Sky has released four singles, with the hope of creating an album and growing their musical career. The band released the fast-paced “Sequential Lives” in January, which describes how all lives across time are connected. Soon after, in February, the duo released the impassioned “Planetary Bliss,” in which the musicians share their dream of a blissful world where more people see and appreciate the beauty of being alive. This single was later followed on by the raging “The Sacral” in May, which implores listeners to let go of pain and forgive. Finally, their most recent single is “Empathy, the Gift,” released in August, in which the artists describe recognizing empathy as a strength.

Opal in Sky has thus far demonstrated an outstanding amount of potential. Their passion and capability as artists is evinced in each of their releases, and it can be said with confidence that they are a rising pioneer of major lyrical and compositional innovation in the subgenre of deathcore metal with their elaborate, brutal sound intertwined with their passionate messages of optimism, dreams, empathy, healing, and embracing life to the best of one’s abilities.