OBSCURA - Diluvium
It’s hard to imagine the last ten years of progressive death metal without German band Obscura. After a self-released album in 2006, they signed to Relapse where they started their space concept tetralogy, of which Diluvium is now the final part. On the first two albums, one could still hear Necrophagist members Hannes Grossmann on drums and Christian Münzner on drums, but now the only remaining founding members is guitarist and vocalist Steffen Kummerer. He is joined by bass player Linus Klausenitzer, also a member of Noneuclid and Alkaloid, the latter being a progressive death metal supergroup consisting among others of the aforementioned Grossmann and Münzner. Newer to Obscura’s line-up are drummer Sebastian Lanser of jazz metal band Panzerballet and guitarist Rafael Trujillo who also has a jazz background.
With such great musicians getting together, the result can only be astonishing. And just like in the past, we get perfectly recorded brainy death metal that takes its inspirations from Atheist, Cynic and Death, and it shouldn’t surprise therefore that Steffen Kummerer is also part of a Death tribute band.
The music on Diluvium is great from beginning to end, except maybe for the digital bonus track A Last Farewell, which is a bass solo piece that doesn’t add much to the album except for being an epilogue to the tetralogy maybe. So let’s focus on the regular tracks. While everything is really great without an exception, I do get the impression that Obscura’s music is so dense at times that it is hard to make out standout tracks, but maybe that hasn’t been their intention anyway. Often every tiny break is filled with short guitar solos, and Linus Klausenitzer also hardly ever leaves out an opportunity to show off his fretless bass guitar solos, and yes, they are truly unique and amazing.
Apart from the opener Clandestine Stars and Convergence, both songs about four minutes long, the tracks usually are more than five minutes long. There are no epically long pieces, and it seems that it’s the band’s goal to add as many elements as possible into their five-minute compositions. The instrumental performance is flawless, and one couldn’t except anything else with these guys, and the vocals are not bad either. They vary from brutal growls to often a more melodic modern thrash delivery, and occasionally even make use of a vocoder, an idea they must have borrowed from Cynic.
Diluvium is a worthy addition to Obscura’s canon and also a nice ending of their tetralogy, and while fans will gloat over this progressive death metal extravaganza, they will of course also wonder what will come next from these technical Germans. I guess we won’t be disappointed.