Obscura
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| Obscura | ||||
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| Studio album by Gorguts | ||||
| Released | 23 June 1998 | |||
| Recorded | Studio Victor in Montreal | |||
| Genre | Technical death metal | |||
| Length | 60:25 | |||
| Label | Olympic, Slipdisc | |||
| Producer | Gorguts, Pierre Rémillard | |||
| Professional reviews | ||||
| Gorguts chronology | ||||
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Obscura is the third album by Gorguts. It is seen as one of the most technical and complex albums within the death metal genre, consisting of many experimental and dissonant melodies, and strange rhythms.
Contents |
[edit] History
Following the release of their second full-length The Erosion of Sanity, the band did an European tour in 1993.[1] However, when Gorguts returned, coincided with the decline of death metal's popularity, and they were subsequently dropped from the Roadrunner roster.[2] Then, they "started writing material for Obscura."[1]
[edit] Critical reception
Obscura was defined by reviewers, as "complex" and "dissonant".[3][4][5][6][7] The album received praise for its production, with the reviewer of the webzine Chronicles of Chaos, saying that Obscura "has the power to take its listeners to other worlds of astounding beauty, dark mystery and intense complexity."[3] With a less broad vision and regarding only the production itself, a writer of the Dark Legions Archive stated:[5]
Powerful mixing technique went into this release to preserve the clarity of individual instruments despite their simultaneously divergent tonal and rhythmic properties, preserving both sound and timbre to a high degree.
From 'Sound Delirium' reviewer Killa Bee[8]
Take death metal riffs, but make them schizophrenic beyond any music that is psychotic and does not fall completely into the spaces that some might call "noise", "free", "improvisations", or just "cacophonous".
Pardo—along with William York of Allmusic—compared Obscura with the free-form jazz of Captain Beefheart, stating that the album "takes all conventional ideas of what extreme metal should sound like and throws them out the window."[4][6] York categorized Obscura, as "one of the most challenging, difficult albums ever released within the metal genre."[6] Others reviewers concluded that Obscura is "very difficult to make comparisons", and even those who did, reached the same conclusion.[3][4]
In terms of its towering complexity and unprecedented strangeness, Obscura has a lot more in common with Captain Beefheart's avant-rock monstrosity Trout Mask Replica than it does the latest Cannibal Corpse release.
[edit] Track listing
All lyrics written by Luc Lemay, Steeve Hurdle.
| # | Title | Music | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Obscura" | Lemay | 4:04 |
| 2. | "Earthly Love" | Hurdle, Lemay, Steve Cloutier | 4:04 |
| 3. | "The Carnal State" | Cloutier, Hurdle | 3:08 |
| 4. | "Nostalgia" | Cloutier, Hurdle | 6:10 |
| 5. | "The Art of Sombre Ecstasy" | Cloutier, Hurdle, Lemay | 4:20 |
| 6. | "Clouded" | Lemay | 9:32 |
| 7. | "Subtle Body" | Cloutier, Hurdle, Lemay | 3:23 |
| 8. | "Rapturous Grief" | Cloutier, Hurdle, Lemay | 5:27 |
| 9. | "La Vie Est Prélude..." | Cloutier, Hurdle, Lemay | 3:28 |
| 10. | "Illuminatus" | Cloutier, Hurdle, Lemay | 6:15 |
| 11. | "Faceless Ones" | Cloutier, Hurdle | 3:50 |
| 12. | "Sweet Silence" (Instrumental) | Cloutier, Hurdle, Lemay | 6:45 |
[edit] Personnel
- Gorguts – producer
- Pierre Rémillard – producer, engineer
- Sylvain Brisebois – master
- Joe Beaupré – photography
- Alain Cloutier – artwork
[edit] References
- ^ a b "Interview with Gorguts and Withered Earth". Smother. Archived from the original on 19 June 2002. http://web.archive.org/web/20020619053005/http://www.smother.net/interviews/gorguts.php3. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
- ^ York, William. "Gorguts > Biography". Allmusic. Macrovision. http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:d9fuxqw5ld6e~T10. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
- ^ a b c Schwarz, Paul (9 January 1998). "Obscura review". Chronicles of Chaos. http://www.chroniclesofchaos.com/reviews/albums/2-915_gorguts_obscura.aspx. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
- ^ a b c Pardo, Peter (5 February 2007). "Obscura review". Sea of Tranquility. http://www.seaoftranquility.org/reviews.php?op=showcontent&id=4738. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
- ^ a b "Gorguts". The Dark Legions Archive. http://www.anus.com/metal/gorguts.html. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
- ^ a b c York, William. "Obscura > Review". Allmusic. Macrovision. http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:hcfwxqrjldae~T10. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
- ^ Wu, Brandon (26 August 2004). "Obscura review". Ground & Sky. http://www.progreviews.com/reviews/display.php?rev=gor-obs. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
- ^ Bee, Killa. "Obscura review". Sound Delirium. http://harum.scarum.net/sound.delirium/reviews/gorguts_obscura.php. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
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