OMNIVIUM

"Omnivium" is the 3rd full-length studio album by German technical/progressive death metal act Obscura. The album was released in March 2011 by Relapse Records. "Omnivium" is probably one of the most hyped technical death metal releases this year. Obscura made quite the name for themselves with "Cosmogenesis (2009)" and therefore the expectations among fans of the technical/progressive part of the death metal genre have been very high for this release.

Obscura started out as a pretty standard death metal act on their debut album "Retribution (2006)". "Cosmogenesis" saw the band taking a technical and at times progressive approach to songwriting and playing. "Cosmogenesis" was generally very well received by critics and fans alike. With "Omnivium" it seems the band have found the right balance between death metal power/brutality, technical playing and progressive ideas. Think a mix of Morbid Angel, Necrophagist, Death and Cynic and you're just about there.

The playing is technical to the extreme. Very fast precision drumming, challenging tempo- and time signature changes, fretless bass playing, lightning fast guitar riffing and melodic soloing are some of the elements on the album. The vocals are predominantly growling but there are "clean" vocoder vocal parts in the music too. The tracks are generally very complex in structure and fans of the genre should find themselves entertained for hours before cracking the code to some of these tracks.

All in all "Omnivium" is probably most technical/progressive metal fan's wet dream come true. I have a few gripes with the album though. Obscura are very skilled musicians and composers, but they are hardly innovative. There's nothing on this album that haven't been done before by some of the band's sources of inspiration. Obscura skillfully mix those influences and make their own music out of it, but they don't invent the wheel. I guess I have a slight issue with that and also the fact that the production is a bit too polished and the growls are a bit tame and lack bite. But my issues aside, "Omnivium" is still a very high quality technical/progressive death metal album and it shows a positive development from "Cosmogenesis". A 4 star rating is deserved.