OBSCURA

Chaotic. Hellish. Music from Dante's Inferno. Schizo. Mentally deranged. Avant-Garde. Paranoid. Psycho. Brutal. Death Metal. Self-harming. Hardcore. ............All these are words that popped into my mind after some listenings to this album.

This is now a cult album in the death metal scene. Some rates it as one of the best ever death metal albums. Others are just confused. So let me introduce some order through sanity.

The music is weird avant-garde with it's base in death metal. The vocals are growls. The guitars are off key and all over the place. Very few riffs and themes are what is commonly known as death metal. The melodic parts are mostly taken from the great progressive rock songbook. Yes, Anekdoten is as good comparison as King Crimson and tens of other bands. My Dying Bride too should be mentioned.

The music is kicking off in all directions on this very experimental album. When I was listening to Gorguts first albums, I questioned why this band was included in PA. Obscura has answered that question and my objections has been withdrawn. Albums like this one is the meat and bones of PA. I am rambling on again, you are saying. The reason is that it is difficult to describe Obscura because it is so off-key in places. It is totally avant-garde and impossible to penetrate. Which means it is a fascinating album. Not easy-listening, but fascinating. The brutallity unleashed in Obscura is of hellish propotions. There is a lot of jazz on this album too. This album is a melting pot of everything.

The music is so far spaced out that it is difficult for an unprepared listener to really have any opinion on it. It is a good album for me and it will stay on my rotation list. But I still find it difficult to access because I am not a Zeul or avant-garde fan. Maybe those into Magma will like this album better than I do. But still; it is worth three stars.

3 stars