Review: Obscura - Omnivium

Band: Obscura
Album: Omnivium
Year: 2011
Genre: Technical/Progressive Death Metal

I had heard only a handful of songs by Obscura before deciding to buy Omnivium. I was pulled in by how much the band sounded like some of my favorite American death metal bands of the early 90s, specifically Cynic and Death. In Omnivium they kept only elements of their previous sound and its safe to say I did not get what I was expecting.

The bass while still pretty audible plays much less of a role than on say Cosmogenesis. This kind of bummed me out because it was in my eyes a pivotal part of Obscura’s sound that I really liked. It’s still there though and you still can here it much more than usual by comparison to other bands. Listen to Septuagint and you can pick it out pretty easily.

Septuagint is actually a really cool song to start the album with too. There is a little acoustic intro then the song rockets away for the next 7 minutes. There are tons of harmonized leads here which draw comparison to other bands like Nueraxis and Quo Vadis who play a technical form of melodic death metal.

The drumming is really great but it’s the tone of the snare that seems to really mar the album for me. It sounds like Hannes Grossmann is hitting a piece of plastic. To me it sounds so weak and in no way at all organic and hardly like a drum at all. This is really a shame because Hannes’ drumming on Omnivium is great. He has hit that mark between being technical but not so overly technical that his drumming seems to be going everywhere and nowhere at once. Like say the drumming on the Arsis album We Are The Nightmare, jeeze.

There are still a lot of riffs on this album and my favorites have to be on Ocean Gateways, Septuagint, and Celestial Spheres. Most of Ocean Gateways is a slower meandering affair with little flares of speed at certain times while Septuagint is all about speed and Celestial Spheres finds a medium between the two. And the instrumental A Transcendental Serenade is a really fun listen where the band sort of lets loose.

Vocally there are a few different variations here. There is a deep death growl, a higher pitch scream. And a vocoder! This obviously draws similarity to Cynic’s Focus but I have to say the way it is done here is more subtle than Paul did on Focus. Both the more extreme vocals are ok and nothing out of the ordinary for the genre but the use of the vocoder adds a little something for those of us who enjoyed Focus but felt it was used a bit too much.

So Obscura in my eyes are successful in my eyes with Omnivium. They wear their influences a bit less on their sleeves but you can still tell where they are coming from and they have sort of given it more spin of their own so they are less of a clone. The vocals are ok and the vocoder is a nice touch as well. The songs are easy to enjoy to the ears of someone not really attuned to technical death metal which makes this a winner.

Score: 8/10
Standout Track: Ocean Gateways, Celestial Spheres, Septuagint

Review: Darkness Ablaze - Shadowreign

Band: Darkness Ablaze
Album: Shadowreign
Year: 2010
Genre: Melodic Death/Black

Metal Archives classifies Darkness Ablaze as melodic black metal but I think it’s safe to say they stray further into the realm of melodic death than black. Maybe it’s because of the keyboards that are sometimes used to give a symphonic sort of feeling in the background. There are also some viking/folk influences as well.

First of all no, there is no pig in the band. Yes those pig squeals are made by vocalist Theodoros Georgitsaros and yes they are annoying. What? You thought pig squeals are confined mostly to deathcore bands? Me too, guess we were both in for a surprise. Ok so maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t been used so heavily. There is admittedly another more black metal like higher pitched growl present here and it comes off far better. Next time stick to the highs ok Theo?

The riffs aren’t really all that memorable except in a few places. Listen to Zero, and The Might of Repression: the solos aren’t that involved and really don’t add much to the songs overall. The one in The Might of Repression isn’t terrible. Like I was saying there are a few instances of good riffs on the album. The lead harmonies on Enclosure No. 7 are pretty good. But there is also the fact that the way in which the twin leads are written makes them sound like they are coming from a metalcore band which may or may not affect your feelings about them.

Then you have the main riff from the track Reduced to a Beast which sounds like it was ripped out of an Amon Amarth song. The folky elements seep into tracks like Enlightened by Shadows, where there is a nice 10 second acoustic intro before you are sonically raped by squealed vocals, and the interlude called…Interlude! Quite clever weren’t they? The acoustic guitars are used more in Interlude and oddly enough it just might be the best song on the album clocking in at 2 minutes long. Not a good sign. There are some other good electric guitar riffs here as well.

Keyboards, love’em or hate’em they’re there. While in general I usually feel they foul up heavy music the band actually uses it pretty well throughout Shadowreign. Whether they are playing as strings, horns/trumpets, or just providing ambient noise, it works!

One of the most memorable moments of Shadowreign though has to come on the song The Might of Repression. The majority of the song itself is actually what you hear on the rest of the album but there is around 2 minutes in the middle of the song that are actually quite epic. It quiets down and an acoustic guitar plays underneath an almost 80s like ballady riff. Sure the piggy growls are used but they actually lack the squeal which makes it tolerable. After a line is growled it is repeated over a few times with cleans and I have to say this is the part that really kills. Theo’s cleans are really good and are emotional without being wimpy, probably because he seems to sing with a deeper voice.

So Darkness Ablaze really brings nothing new to the table besides having a sweet name that makes no sense. Sure there are cool moments on the album but that’s the problem, they are confined to moments and not entire songs. It comes off as pretty standard melodic death metal for the most part. The vocals really destroy most of the redeeming factors here. Like I said earlier had the pig squeals been used not at all or even kept to a minimum it might have been different. But they weren’t and it makes the album a difficult listen. If you are looking for good melodic death metal (or black metal for that matter) there are far better places to look.

Score: 4/10
Standout Track: Interlude