Obliteration - Black Death Horizon (2013)

So, what exactly constitutes a great death metal album in the year 2013? In the 80s, the answer was pretty clearly defined as a record that was frightening, shocking, or breaking new ground through the guttural vocals and increased intensity of thrash techniques. In the 90s, technicality and progression took over, not to mention a bunch of bands attempting to lyrically out-sicken one another. In the 00s, it was studio polish, groove, cross-genre pollination and ultimately, the inevitable slowing down of the innovations that got us there. As for the 20teens, well thus far they've seen the cannibalization of all prior decades, whether in conjunction or in specific worship of a particular scene or trend. So I am forced to adjust my initial answer. A great album, in any epoch, is one that you fucking enjoy. While I'm not ruling out the fact that small nuances and innovations are still trickling into the genre, a great album in 2013...is one that you fucking ENJOY, and don't let any message board Gestapo or cliquey checklists of 'cool' attempt to convince you otherwise. You don't want to be 'cool', friends, you want to be death metal. As your daemonic counsel, I must insist!

Black Death Horizon is an album that I really, really fucking ENJOY. It's an anomalous, oppressive 42 minutes of proto-death metal influences churned in a vat, stirred to a relish-like composition and then served to you on a rotten bun. It cultivates everything from a raw punk and thrash inspiration to dismal, doomy Autopsisms and Incantationality while marginally altering the strategy of the prior two Obliteration full-lengths, both of which I also...really ENJOYED. It's not quite so brutal and direct as the debut, nor so slimy and squamous as the sophomore Nekropsalms, but more like an atmospheric ritual being evoked on a hellish mountainside where the trees have all been burnt clean by volcanic activity. Caldera metal?!? I want full credit for that. Of course, Black Death Horizons, like almost any death metal record you're like to hear in 2013, is really just a combination of precursor components configured into a slightly new way. Broiling tremolo-picked patterns burst from stretches of moody, death/doom disdain that subsist off dank, uneasy harmonies, and d-beat rhythms weave an undead thuggishness...and happiness is nowhere near at hand, with any and all melodic sensibilities confined to discomfort. Even the leads roil about aimlessly and excitedly like plumes of molten spunk being fired off into the cervix of the ash-caked sky, and ultimately, the Norwegians pulls off what so many bands cannot: a death metal record that actually SOUNDS evil.

It's not excessively catchy beyond just a handful of riffing progressions (like the Arabesque tremolo guitars in "Sepulchral Rites"), but it's brutally functional and persistent due to a number of employed techniques. For one, the vocals here are howled and grating rather than disciples of the typical guttural blueprint. I'm not sure how many takes it took Sindre Solem beyond the first to finish off each tune, but they sound so genuine and tormented rather than clinical, brickwalled and forced. Just the right level of reverb, and a rawness of feeling which guarantees variety in almost any line or chorus. Another is the voluminous, distorted bass lines that provide a bulkiness against the more straightforward clarity of the rhythm guitar chords. This creates a base ugliness to the proceedings that recounts some of the murk of the sophomore, but complements rather than contrasts the airy hostility of Torp's axemanship. Also, props to this guy for his constant feeling about the fretboard, a parity explored through all the layers and textures of higher strings employed far more often than banal open chord chugging. Black Death Horizon is not an album of breakdowns, but a movement from one bleak ritual to the next which occasionally deigns to rock your goddamn socks off. It's such a natural flow to it that it sounds the natural throughput of twisted minds, not the meticulous mosh hymnal you'll find of most modern death metal. Thus, this fully falls into the 'retro' or 'nostalgia' camp without obeying the rules.

Also have to complement the drumming, which shifts between warlike, sparse cadence to a more black metal based combination of snares and kicks through the blast-work. The title of this record is no joke, I do actually feel like fans of older Mayhem, Marduk and Darkthrone will get just as much a kick out of this effort as those seeking another Altars of Madness, Onward to Golgotha or Mental Funeral. There's an unpredictable nature about how they've written this (much like the second album) that keeps it fresh and frightening throughout, and the bonus atmospherics like cleaner chanted vocals and ominous droning throat passages show an ethnic flexibility in musical influence that promises the unusual. Not that they're the first group to pull this off, but they do it with restraint...never seeming out of place or like some shallow stab at sounding 'different'. Black Death Horizon makes as much sense musically as a fiery cataclysm that ends civilization by blanketing the firmament with a blanket of soot. In listening, you can just hear all the humans choke through their final moments as they reach forth to touch any glimpse of a glittering star beyond the hazy death beyond their reach. The lucky ones will be disintegrated in magma, but not you, fair listener...no, you will suffocate until the very end, watching your neighbors and loved ones perish. That's the sound of one kickass death metal disc, venner.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10]

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Obliteration - Perpetual Decay (2007)

Fans of Obliteration's second, better known record Nekropsalms might have been a little surprised if going in reverse order to discover their full-length debut Perpetual Decay, because while the two albums share an unflinching love for the old school of death metal, there is a discernible difference in their approach. The 2009 sophomore was borne of slow, creepy atmospheres that dredge up the haunted, cavernous morass of being slowly ingested by some ancient, ghastly entity, but its predecessor was fast and firing on many cylinders, picking up from the Total Fucking Obliteration EP and then destroying the material there.

Perpetual Decay is crisp, dynamic and very polished death metal that merges the bleak, grisly influence of US masters like Obituary, Autopsy, Master and Death with the frenetic speed of a Morbid Angel, Deicide, Malevolent Creation or early Suffocation, but in some places you'll also hear some Dutch influence from Pestilence (up to Testimony of the Ancients, in particular the vocals) and Asphyx. In other words, they manage to capture a wide range of their forebears in a very straightforward approach that relies entirely on the strength of its riffs, and fortunate for us all, several of these riffs are the type that, while not so original, are energetic and fun enough that they warrant some repeated attention.

The album sets its pace early with the opener "Sadistic Nekroabortion" and then rarely lets up, though this very track does offer some slower segments of morbid, doom-tinged material. But tracks like "The Abominator", "Breeding the Sick", "Guts and Glory", and the title track are simply bristling with a cryptic, fiendish pallor of frightening cacophony, riffs so slick with blood and muddied graveyard soil that they almost trip over themselves in their haste to devour the brains of the living. "Consumed by Flames" briefly teases us with an old Cannibal Corpse style mosh rhythm, then it too falls in line with the rapid onslaught. Only the dull, forgettable "Instrumental" and the choppy closing tracks "Sepulchral Entity" and "Sinstorm" stop for a last, dying gasp, returning to the hints of death and doom found in the first song, but the last offers yet another explosion after the bridge.

I can't cite Perpetual Decay for being as unique as its slower moving, discordant and foul smelling follow-up, but there are hints here or there of the future progression, encapsulated in the thrust of the writhing mayhem. The performances are praiseworthy, the nostalgia clearly evoked, and so rarely have I heard such an interesting nexus of a band's influences. If you had told me I would be listening to a hybrid of Mental Funeral, The Bleeding, Testimony of the Ancients, Effigy of the Forgotten, Leprosy and Altars of Madness back in the early to mid 90s, I would have creamed my shorts so hard they would have leaked crimson. Yet here it lies, from fucking Norway in the 21st century...

Verdict: Win [8/10]

http://www.myspace.com/obliterationnorway

Obliteration - Total Fucking Obliteration EP (2005)

Norway is hardly the hotbed for death metal, outside of defunct acts like Molested or the chugging carnality of Kraanium. But there are notable exceptions like this one. And though we've since been graced with two of the band's pummeling full-length statements of sluggish old school, morbid death metal with a swamp/tomb atmosphere, Obliteration's initial EP release Total Fucking Obliteration is also worth writing home about. It sets up the style of the ensuing works quite well, but the four tracks here are representative of a far more straightforward sound, evoking the destructive simplicity of early Pestilence, Cannibal Corpse, Death, Napalm Death, Suffocation, Malevolent Creation, and the like.

I should note that of the four tracks here, the final two have a more death/thrash technique and feature an appearance by the great Apollyon of Aura Noir. I actually found myself gravitating towards the music in these tracks a little more, since the riffs are stronger and woven with a primitive technicality that spuriously complements the breakdowns and the brutal vocals. But I actually didn't care for the change up in vocals, and might have preferred them if they stuck with Sindre Solem's gutturals throughout. "Total Fucking Obliteration" itself is the one favorite though, as it rollicks along at an early Pestilence pace, a punishing groove fit for both the moshpit or mortuary slab. "The Smell of Rotten Entrails" is suitably horrific, with a mild grinding edge to it and a slather of snarls accenting the grunts. "Baptized in Vomit" features a truly old school low-end waltz of the dead, spritzed with explosions of abortive turbulence. Instantly it whisks you away to the nightmare world of the early 90s, when death metal albums were rolling out their creepy covers and the lack of internet/instant information made it all the more gloomy.

The Total Fucking Obliteration EP is not as inspiring as the full-lengths Perpetual Decay or Nekropsalms, in part because the band actually develops the style of this short play into something more immersive and original that shouldn't be missed. But if you're merely looking for old school worship done justice, then there is no reason to scoff at this earlier material. The experience might last only 13-14 minutes, but that's just enough for whatever elder god this band is conjuring to tear through the fabric of sanity and wrench your mind from its socket.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://www.myspace.com/obliterationnorway

Obliteration - Nekropsalms (2009)

Norse death metal has not truly seen its day since the era of Molested. Sure, Blood Red Throne has done their very best to keep our corpses rotting in the interim, but they have recently been joined by another slowly gathering force, Obliteration. 2007's debut album Perpetual Decay was a fine introduction to the band's atmospheric, old school festering horror, but their second splatter, Nekropsalms, takes this one step further, a rambling and decrepit offering that truly tests the dank waters of the form (much like Molested did those many years ago). The word to describe this album is: morbid. Obliteration do not struggle to impress you with fast, blasting hyper-rhythms or maniacal displays of chug and virtuosity...they can create a hypnotic fermentation through sheer willpower and minimal hints of progression.

I seriously felt maggots birthing in my eyewells and cobwebs forming across my beard as I listened to this album. It is the true sound of rot, the horror of the grave as the bodies moulder and commit themselves to the cycle of micro-organic rebirth. "Ingesting Death" starts with roaming guitars and bass, ellipsing into strange seconds of discord, like the last light dying from the eyes of the recently deceased. If this doesn't creep you the fuck out, "Catacombs of Horror" will absorb you like a river of sentient molasses. Slow, chugging beneath the deep, desolate vocals of Sindre Solem, with some freakout bass effects and glinting chords to add just enough melodic shine to the destructive depression. The band clearly has their roots in death/doom metal, and a healthy (or unhealthy) amount of influence from pioneers like Autopsy, Obituary and Death (the death metal Death, before the cosmic hippy boredom). Just when you thought all would be crawling along like a perpetual bowel movement, the track "Exterminate" opens with a moment of broiling slaughter, bouncing bass and infernal thrust. "The Spawn of a Dying Kind" transforms creepy, wailing guitars into another slow, crepitating abysmal vomitscape, and "Nekropsalms Evoke the Frozen Age" indeed. "Styxerian Path (Into Darkness)" is another track with a faster intro, which crashes about like a decapitated meat colossus in a slaughter farm, until it finally falls over and the blood slowly saps out of its neck. The album closes with the 9+ minute epic "The Worm That Gnaws in the Night", and we are re-visited by the trippy bass hypnosis and a surge of mid-paced, 'uplifting' rhythms, that later ascend into more grindy material and then a total chaotic collapse.

The band has outdone itself with this release, and the Nekropsalms sound ancient and horrific. Repeated listens continue to offer me more insight into this living death, the album is like being a symbiote inside the null-mind of a zombie as it trudges through a landscape of rotting carcasses, decided where and whether to feed and pondering the parasites that pick at its flesh from their invisible world. Though it's not nearly as chaotic or technically adept, the album reminds of Gorguts' Obscura in so much that it transforms the death metal tradition into a nubile realm of decadent exploration. I would certainly classify this as 'psychedelic' death metal. But not high off drugs. High off decay.

Highlights: Catacombs of Horror, The Spawn of a Dying Kind, The Worm That Gnaws in the Night

Verdict: Win [8.5/10]

http://www.myspace.com/obliterationnorway