GORGUTS

Releasing a new album after 12 years is always a very risky move. You may not be in the good shape any more, could take it too safely or you could have accumulated plenty of new energy and ideas. Fortunately, Gorguts belongs to the latest category. They don't compromise the previous complexity and rawness, the tracks are full of notes and changes which lead to the typical problem - lack of cohesion and accessibility. The aged vocal is more bearable (less hardcore) to me and there are ample instrumental moments. In terms of accessibility, it is better than Obscura but worse than any other Gorguts album. Let's praise Gorguts for having a concept for this album, including some lighter moments (such as more relaxing atmospheric prog metal on "Absconders"). To all fans of complex metal playing - go for it, for anyone else - equip yourself with a lot of patience or leave it.

Obscura is the third album by Gorguts and it elevates their chops by several leagues. Music became extremely complex, inaccessible which I believe hasn't gained more fans than it has lost after departing the old school death- metal. There's no denying about the playing ambition of the band with so many shifts that it must have been hellish difficult to learn to play it. The album is very long (for the death-metal genre) and it made me tired till I reached its end. Naturally such challenging albums are notoriously hard to appreciate at first listen however many listeners will already have a comparison to other technical death metal bands. If I compare this album to Death and "Between the Buried and me" than this one pales because of lack of compositional structure and relatively mediocre songwriting. It feels being randomly developed tracks which lack feelings (positive or negative). The hardcore vocal does not make the experience any better, for me (I have the same issue with Between the buried and me, to a lesser extent). This album is for very hardcore technical metal fans which sacrifice the actual music to well executed playing.

Obscura is an album that even after so many years continues to sound so brutal, so unique and so innovative even after its release, this is an experience, which takes you on a philosophical and cosmic adventure with dissonant and technical riffs, schizophrenic rhythm, tortured vocals and abstract and thoughtful lyrics, i feel that every moment here is not wasted unnecessarily, which is impressive considering the scope of this album, everything here is incredible and i didn't find a single flaw, however, it may take a while for you to like this album or to absorb it, you need to have an open mind, it's not for everyone, but faced with something so chaotic and so strange, it's a true essential masterpiece, i especially love the title track ''Earthly Love'' ''Nostalgia'' ''La Vie Est Prélude'' and ''Faceless One'', easily one of the best albums i've ever heard.

I think this is one of the reasons progachives are made for. You can travel throughout its pages and choose something new to listen, a new discovery to be made. Most of the times if find gems that you will not now, and hardly you will find something considered good here that does not matches your taste.

This was the case with this album. I would have A LOT of reasons to do not appreciate it, because TOO heavy music do not compounds my musical diet that is related much more to the heaviness achieved in the seventies, but, ok, last two albums showed Iron Maiden at full speed.

Therefore, I tried it, this Obscura from Gorgut, setting my prejudices aside. Moreover, the results were fantastic! The main one is that it was turned clear to me, an appreciator of Vangelis´s smooth melodic achievement, that it is perfectly possible to achieve a masterpiece of music with such a strong heaviness.

I took the care of considering it a masterpiece of music, not of progressive music. If this music is progressive or not, I do not really care, it does not matter, what really is important to consider is that you should listen to this album mainly if you are not a heavy music appreciator. Its positive effect will be greater on you, you can be sure of this

Was anybody actually ready for an album like Obscura back in 1998? Watch any early live performance of these songs on Youtube, and what you'll see is a crowd that's practically motionless. They're not moshing, instead just stunned and transfixed at the bizarre dissonance and calculated chaos playing out before them. In the same year that other tech-death landmarks such as The Sound of Perseverance were being released, Gorguts had already left the archetypal trappings and conventions of the genre far behind with an avant-garde metal masterwork that stood - and still stands today - as a monument to mental anguish and turmoil.

I get the sense that much of the confusion and surprise surrounding Obscura stemmed from the sheer leap forward from its predecessor. The Erosion of Sanity is more sophisticated than Considered Dead, sure, but it's still a relatively straightforward death metal album. No one could have predicted something like Obscura; imagine if Death released Individual Thought Patterns immediately after Scream Bloody Gore. So what happened? Well' Steeve Hurdle happened. Luc Lemay might be the co-founder and bandleader of Gorguts, but he's never going to find a better wingman than Hurdle. The duo's combined artistic vision led to a level of experimentation and twisted chemistry that can't be matched anywhere else in the group's catalog; if you have any doubts of Hurdle's involvement in this partnership, the liner notes credit both him and Lemay with the 'artistic direction' of Obscura.

And what an artistic direction this is. All of death metal's stereotypical traits and tropes have been thrown out the window in favor of abstract lyrics, strange chord structures, and ever-changing time signatures. Instead of being technical for technicality's sake, however, Gorguts use their musical toolkit as a means of communicating intense feelings of dread, despair, and viscera. While the songwriting is impressive, the way these emotions and thoughts are conveyed through the songwriting is what makes it so effective. It's as if every weird bout of dissonance and every alien guitar squeal is another layer of sanity being ripped away from the listener. Of course, the vocals are also a massive contributor to this. If Lemay sounds demented and savage - which he does - Hurdle acts as his tortured and agonized counterpart. Every time Hurdle lets out a lyric, even if it's not particularly disturbing, he transforms it into a twisted and ugly affair with his horrible retching and heaving. And what's so wild about all of this is that the record makes more and more sense with repeated listens; what seems like chaos starts falling into place once you let the deliberate nature of the songwriting and execution sink in.

Of course, I don't want to leave bassist Steve Cloutier or drummer Patrick Robert out of the picture either; the fact that they can make sense of the musical madness on Obscura and play these crazy riffs so impeccably is a feat unto itself. Their precision and technical acumen is a perfect foil for Lemay and Hurdle's insane ideas, leading to strong chemistry between all members. Everyone is locked in with each other, which is absolutely necessary for an album that could go flying off the rails at any given time. Obscura reminds me a lot of Calculating Infinity by The Dillinger Escape Plan in that regard; both records have a habit of letting chaos and control coexist in strange and creative ways. Sometimes the two mingle, and sometimes they clash with each other. Still, one thing is for certain: the members of Gorguts are ridiculously talented. As for the lyrics, they're a substantial step up from the band's previous output; the gore and social commentary of yesteryear were now replaced with writings on existentialism, spiritualism, and - you guessed it - despair. In any case, they prove to be just as abstract and peculiar as the music they're accompanying, which seems appropriate.

But to answer my original question: no, people were not ready for Obscura back in 1998. There's a reason Gorguts are commonly cited as pioneers of avant-garde metal; nothing sounded like this back then, in the technical death metal genre or otherwise. If the album had proven anything, it was that many of their contemporaries were already being left in the dust artistically. Because of Obscura, extreme metal would simply never be the same again.

No. This isn't accessible in the slightest, as a matter of fact I'm pretty sure only people that enjoy the heaviest of metal could possibly enjoy this record due to how raw it is. With that said, there's facts that simply can't be denied. Obscura, much like other death metal records like Symbolic, was essential and influential to the genre.

Obscura could the considered the first proper technical death metal masterpiece. It took all the risks possible by going all out on instrumentation and song structure complexity, often recurring to dissonance and atonality. The album has a very raw sound which I assume was acquired from a possibly low-budget, which makes it sound much heavier and embracing than the modern crap you hear on the genre that sounds like a computer.

This record, as brutal as it is, is incredibly soulful and recognizable. And add up the fact that it completely changed the genre with its manic time signature changes and hyperactive song structures. This record isn't for the faint-hearted, but it's for sure for those who wish to possess the most essential metal records. Five Stars.

Gorguts - Obscura

Not joking when I tell you that this is one of the most important records in the history of metal. It is the first record to combine metal with dissonance and avant-garde, all in an incredibly technical manner that was never achieved before in metal or even rock. The musicianship is unparalleled and execution is flawless. Since it has dissonance and avant-garde, it's very inaccessible, so I recommend you to listen it in bits. A full listen could become tedious half-way through. Regardless of inaccessibility, the reward for giving this record a try is unimaginable.

An essential record for metal.

One of my friends (who's into more heavy music) once recommended me this album, I warned him that I was probably not going to like it because he told me it had growls in every single track. The first time I listened Obscura I thought it sounded terrible. It was an absolute mess of riffs with no melody and a pig screeching on top, yuck! However this chaos kinda caught my attention, because I really couldn't tell a single progressive rock band that made an album as chaotic yet technical as this one. The second listen, I started to pay more attention to the instrumentation and get used to the growls (but I still didn't like them), and I definitely began to appreciate this album.

The thing is that I really don't like growls, and I think that if there was some sort of singer delivering actual notes, I would enjoy this more. But the instrumentation behind this has to be some of the most complex metal ever made. Every track is an undecypherable ocean of time signatures and riffs that I simply cannot comprehend, and it's even harder to understand when you have someone growling on top.

With all the songs being very similar, I can't say there's a specific stand out in this album (although Nostalgia could be a candidate for that spot), and even though I really don't enjoy extreme metal... To each with their own! This album is truly a monster within its genre, and the instrumentation is some of the greatest I've heard, it's more than enough to redeem the awful and disgusting vocals that plague the album. I'm pretty sure death metal fans will enjoy this more than I do! A bold record, but one that works amazingly, I'm giving it five stars, even though I don't listen it that much.

First review, and I'm going to make my username check out! Gorguts is still my favorite technical death metal band, mostly due to their acquired and identifiable sound. Their first two albums feature very strong death metal influences, but in Obscura, things get very progressive. Dissonant, obscure (pun intended), heavy, brutal, un-expectable and very, very awesome! The title track features a very fun syncopated dissonant guitar. Nostalgia features tasty bone-crushing riffs. Clouded has an amazing atmosphere that gets you in a trance. Subtle Body has an awesome middle-east vibe. My favorite album by Gorguts! Super heavy and unique, recommended to any metal-head! Five Stars!

- Review #20 -

Gorguts' third album might actually be the scariest album I have ever heard. There's something very unsettling about the album's raw sound combined with its incorporated dissonance and heavy growls, and the flow present in those twelve tracks is seriously one of the best: It's one of those albums that you listen from beginning to end. I usually don't listen to separate tracks because the transitions get ruined.

With its raw production, each instrument fills the mix entirely, making it sometimes difficult to differentiate each instrument. That truly sounds like a bad aspect, but surprisingly, it only increases the quality of the ambience and feel present in the album. Most of the songs are very fast-paced and technically proficient, with their lengths going from three minutes to nine. Each track features some very complex and constantly-changing time signatures, which further defines the sound of the album (and the band itself).

That's right. This was the album where Gorguts defined their signature sound, and this makes Obscura a crucial album in the band's discography. Now, I must say this can be a tough nut to crack. It definitely took me a couple listens before I could actually start appreciating this album as a true piece of art. Progressive rock fans, to be more specific, will probably struggle the most because of the growls and sometimes non-existent melody. But they should still give it a try. To the metal head out there: Go check it out! If you like growls you will probably fall in love with this album.

Sound-Defining, brutal and bold. Obscura is a five star album that to this day remains as the bastion of the band.