Obscura – Diluvium

Winds of Creation by Decapitated and Incruso by Spawn of Possession takes the cake of being my all time favorites in the whole technical death metal sub-genre, the former for its brutality and its primitive yet complex charm, the later for its in your face technicality, with more riffs per minute than the entire AC/DC discography. However of late it has become a sub-genre of paradoxes and image conflicts, take any modern technical death metal band, you will find couple of good looking young men, virtuosos in their respective instruments who look as if they belong in a jazz band. There is a constant conflict between the need to remain technical and the need to sound like a death metal band, it seems the musicians are limited by the death metal tag which they are afraid to shed off. This leads to albums and songs that are mostly "feats of technical excellence", the novelty of playing fast wears off pretty quick (Relentless Mutation by Archspire for example) and in this age of studio wizardry and pro-tools, precision and perfection has lost its sheen. So what is next for a technical death metal band? go progressive and make the technicality subtle and that is just what Obscura has done.   

Progressive death metal is a sub-genre wherein some of my all time favorite bands like Opeth, Death and Gojira comes under and Obscura has slowly crept under that blanket. Diluvium is the last album of the four part concept series starting with Cosmogensis (2009), Omnivum (2011) and Akróasis (2016) based on the themes origin, evolution and consciousness respectively, Diluvium casts of the series with the theme of death. Things start off with a short drum and an "ugh" (think Celtic Frost, Thomas Gabriel Fischer etc) followed by a Mors Principium Est riff and the necessary intro scream on Clandestine Stars, but this is Obscura and the very same riffs will get intricate layers and gets complex as it progresses. Around a minute mark comes what that separates them from other death metal bands, the vocoder vocals which to me sounds like the pseudo clean vocals of Travis Ryan on the recent two Cattle Decapitation albums, it's not a bad thing however, if you have developed a taste for it, I have gone on to enjoy them with subsequent listens. The album however kicks starts in the second song Emergent Evolution, the time and space theme continues and song features a harmonized screamed and vocoder vocals as a chorus, however what struck me the most is the soulful guitar solo around the middle, 'soul' is the word that I don't usually associate with music that is labelled as technical death metal, this album features tons of those moments.

Mortification of the Vulgar Sun is my favorite of the album, it features a groovy main riff that feels off time, something that would be right at home on a Meshuggah record, the band adds more flavors to it by incorporating dreamy acoustic parts and a short bass solo. The song that follows is the catchiest on the record Ethereal Skies featuring alternate cleanly sung and growled verses, it also houses the best piece of lyric of the album.

"In ethereal skies, we transcend in eclectic divine

as a glimpse of light, forevermore.

In wandering stars, we emerge from light to abyss

as abandoned gods, we redeem in purgatory"

Ethereal Skies also has a tasteful string arrangement around two minute mark followed by a kind of guitar solo that you will find only in albums released in the 70s, the phrasing, the tone, everything is sublime without wandering into the overplaying territory that has plagued many albums in the sub-genre.

A special mention should be made to the song The Conjuration, it is the heaviest song of the album, something you should have already guessed from the title. It has a bombastic intro complete with blast beats and tremolo picking with a short oriental sounding riff just before the blast beats. The lyrics are equally heavy, if you read the lyrics without listening to the song you may mistaken it for a Behemoth song. The album ends with its best moment on An Epilogue to Infinity, a colossal of a song, like every closing song of great albums, the song represents the album's sound and theme in a nutshell. The song's lyrics in a way reminds me of the song Creeping Death by Metallica, with each verse beginning with "I", the song has a beautiful acoustic guitar breakdown around the middle and it feels very Opeth-esque and the same haunting part is used as a motif in the subsequent heavy part, giving the song a sense of melancholy and finality. There is one more song however a bonus instrumental track called A Last Farewell, I don't understand why they kept it has a bonus track, because I feel it's great, the song feels like an aftermath of the spectacle we just heard, it feels like the movie is over and the credits are rolling.

     Linus Klausenitzer

     

Diluvium really impressed me and I was not expecting it to. The album differentiates itself from countless other technical death metal albums in having a soul, the record feels cohesive and ethereal, the production is top notch highlighting each an every instrument making them shine and shine it does. Applauding the bass work of an Obscura album is redundant but I have to do it, Linus Klausenitzer's playing adds another dimension to the compositions and often within the album he takes the lead. The lyrics are some of the best I've heard in the genre even though I could not fathom the theme they are going for in their four part series, however there is this morose and bleak feel throughout and the 'death' theme seems to speak of something more fundamental: The death of time and space.

When all is said (written) and done (listened), this record is the best metal album of the year so far and I don't think anything that is coming this year is going to topple it from my album of the year spot. If there is an album that could be a gateway to technical death metal or death metal in general, this is it and it is a gateway not because it's any less technical than others, it is because a premier technical death metal band has refined their sound and brought out their best album yet.      

Diluvium is available for purchase through Relapse Records.         

LINKS FOR YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT

Obscura   Decapitated  Spawn of Possession  Technical Death Metal  Archspire

Progressive Metal  Opeth  Death  Gojira  Mors Principum Est  Cattle Decapitation

Vocoder  Meshuggah  Behemoth  Metallica