vote
7.0
- Band:
OBSCENE - Duration: 00:33:00
- Available from: 12/07/2024
- Label:
-
Nameless Grave Records
Streaming not yet available
We first noticed Obscene’s death metal in 2020, thanks to their debut album “The Inhabitable Dark”. Although very often reeking of those deafening death-thrash assaults of the early Pestilence and Morgoth, their cauldron of old-school revival was genuine and well-interpreted by a band that had certainly studied the material well before getting to work. With the second full-length “…from Dead Horizon to Dead Horizon”, the Indianapolis quartet has therefore substantially adopted the “strike while the iron is hot” approach, proposing a sound that is only slightly more refined in terms of production. This discourse is all in all also applicable to the new “Agony & Wounds”, a chapter that sees the boys once again confidently don the clothes of brazen death-thrashers to package a work that smacks of maximalist aggression, in which renewed thrash instances are absorbed into an even more muscular and aggressive sound.
The opener “The Cloverland Panopticon” immediately adds fuel to the fire with an uptempo that, as usual, recalls a “Consuming Impulse” or a “The Eternal Fall”, reeling off easy-to-grasp riffs on which Kyle Shaw’s now customary bark stands out. Perhaps thanks to a fuller and brighter sound, this third effort by the Americans is more immediate and ‘accessible’ than the previous ones: the songs seem to push harder than ever, some riffs are particularly ‘catchy’ and, in general, the typical fervor of our guys seems better channeled, even though songs like “Written in Blood and Covered in Flies”, “Rotting Behind the Madness” or the lugubrious title-track also let us glimpse a darker and more reflective vein.
On “Agony & Wounds” Obscene seem determined to define the perimeter of their sound more than ever, making their proposal particularly compact and underlining as much as possible that sense of urgency that permeates all the songs on the album. A declaration of absolute attitude that is at times slightly held back by Shaw’s slightly too monotonous interpretation behind the microphone, but that overall manages to give satisfaction, confirming the good state of inspiration of the band, which has now found its niche where it can express itself with total ease.
We are convinced that a group like Obscene gives its best live, but even within the four walls of your home these songs can represent a nice feeling, if you are a big fan of the genre.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM