I’m not going to lie and say I was right there in ’89 when Obituary released its debut, Slowly We Rot. The album, a raw mass of angst, thrash and chaos, would ultimately become a death metal touchstone of sorts.
I was, however, there a couple of years later; as grunge dominated the airwaves (well, at least the radio I was listening to), I remember sitting in a car in the middle of the night, dumbstruck by the trio of “Body Bag”, “Chopped in Half” and the Celtic Frost cover, “Circle of the Tyrants” (off Cause of Death), and amazed at this new (to me) sonic experience. It was around the time Hit Parader and various other music magazines I pored over were hyping the release of the band’s third album, The End Complete, as the expansive, landscape artwork picked for the cover captured my imagination just like the band’s sound.
Fast-forward almost 20 years, and I can say that I’ve listened to my fair share of what most like to call death metal—some I’ve liked, some I could have done without. And while I believe that Cannibal Corpse and Napalm Death have far outlived their shelf-lives, I still get excited about a new Obituary album. Maybe it was the lengthy hiatus into the new millennium (the near eight-year gap between Back from the Dead and Frozen in Time), or maybe it’s just that the down-tuned dirge and deliberate approach to every album seems to have found a home in my musical heart.
While not quite as glorious as 2007’s Xecutioner’s Return, this year’s Darkest Day still has plenty of that trademark Obituary sound to get fans, old and new alike, bobbing their heads together.
Take the thunderous “Blood to Give”, with its drum fills galore, the constant churning of “Lost Inside” or the frenetic urgency of “Outside My Head”. Obituary isn’t doing anything new here, but that’s not really what fans are looking for. Instead, the band chooses to incorporate little nuances into songs here and there, switching things up just enough (unlike some of the band’s genre brethren) to keep things sounding fresh.
Another more recognizable metal legend has a new album out this week (World Painted Blood), which I’ve listened to a few times. Slayer has, for the most part, stayed true to the thick, meaty, metallic sound that they helped launch. But there’s a definite difference between those earlier albums and the newer material—not in the sound but in the feel. The band lost that raw edge along the way, and then threw out the album of punk covers as a little curveball to the fans. There was once a time I’d take Diabolus in Musica over Reign in Blood but these days I’m going through a sort of late-’80s/early-’90s revival of sorts. At any rate, World Painted Blood far outshines God Hates Us All, and, if the rumors of this one being Slayer’s swan song are true, it’s one hell of a note to go out on.
It’s fun and exciting (sometimes) when a band goes out on a limb to try something different (i.e., Mötley Crüe’s self-titled album with John Corabi, Metallica’s Load, Opeth’s Damnation), but for those bands that stay true to their core sound, there’s still something to be said for comfort in the familiar.
