By:
Daniel Jackson
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 5/2/2016
Label: Relapse Records
there’s no denying the remarkable skill on display, and if that’s
what you’re after in the first place, you’ll come away more than satisfied with
‘Akroasis’. If you were hoping to hear certain aspects of ‘Omnivium’ expanded
upon and explored further, there’s a chance you might be left feeling a bit
cold towards what you hear.
‘Akroasis’ CD//2xLP//DD track listing:
1.
Sermon Of The Seven Suns
2.
The Monist
3.
Akróasis
4.
Ten Sepiroth
5.
Ode To The Sun
6.
Fractal Dimension
7.
Perpetual Infinity
8.
Weltseele
9.
Melos (Deluxe LP bonus track)
10.
The Origin Of Primal Expression (CD bonus track)
Obscura is:
Steffen
Kummerer | Vocals, Guitar
Rafael
Trujillo | Guitar
Linus
Klausenitzer | Bass
Sebastian
Lanser | Drums
The Review:
‘Akroasis’, Obscura’s
latest tech death offering has a lot going on, which, depending on your taste,
could be an immediate turn off, or it could be what excited you about the
album’s potential in the first place. The album’s been out for about a month as
I’m writing this, and you’re very much able to just hear it for yourselves. Why
bother writing about it now, then? Because the album presents an interesting
discussion point: the importance of big, impactful musical moments vs.
jaw-dropping technical prowess.
The
debate isn’t a new one; the first side yells “Write a fucking song!”
while the second screams “Learn to play your fucking instrument!”.
Really, neither side is wrong, as music is always a subjective experience, so
it really just boils down to personal taste. There are death metal albums which
manage to bridge that gap nicely, Death’s later material
being the most obvious example, but by and large, most tend to fall on one side
or the other.
Obscura’s previous album, ‘Omnivium’, showed some real potential
as far as becoming a band that succeeds at both goals. The album delivered a
really exciting blend of hyperspeed melodic death metal riffing, ludicrous
guitar shredding, and atmospheric interludes at opportune times to break the
tension. ‘Akroasis’ tries its best
to recreate that formula, with the biggest changes coming in the form of Linus
Klausenitzer’s increasingly jazzy bass playing and expanded use of Cynic-style clean vocals. While there’s no doubting the
extraordinary technical skill of every single member of the band, ‘Akroasis’ does seem to lose some of its
lustre whenever the tempo slows down. In trying to nail down why these sections
aren’t able to maintain a similar excitement level to their blast-heavy
counterparts, there are a couple of likely culprits.
First,
as talented as he is, and as cool as the idea sounds on paper, fretless jazz
bass in a death metal context makes the whole thing sound sleepy. The band
carves out a gigantic portion of the album’s sound for Klausenitzer’s bass, which
is usually a good thing. But the style being utilized actively works to take
the overall mood down several notches, no matter how well it’s performed. It
fits the mood really nicely on an album like Opeth’s “Morningrise”, which is often downtempo
to begin with. But on ‘Akroasis’,
where everything else is so frenetic, the bass clashes with everything else
stylistically.
The
second possible issue is that the album sounds too clinical to give those prog
elements the life and dynamism the way Obscura wants it too.
When the album isn’t moving at a breakneck pace, the ultra-tight sound takes
something away from the more expressive nature of those moments. Ideally, the
aim should be for a production that keeps their excellent guitar clarity, but
gives the drums more life and room to breathe. I’m open to the possibility that
this is too nitpicky, but for my taste, something seemingly small like this
would make a big, positive difference to the feel of the material.
As
I said early on, there’s no denying the remarkable skill on display, and if
that’s what you’re after in the first place, you’ll come away more than
satisfied with ‘Akroasis’. If you
were hoping to hear certain aspects of ‘Omnivium’
expanded upon and explored further, there’s a chance you might be left feeling
a bit cold towards what you hear. Even then, I would say ‘Akroasis’ warrants at least a tentative recommendation, because
while some of these ideas may not appeal to me specifically as they’re carried
out here, you may find a lot more to dig into.
‘Akroasis’ is available here
and a CD/LP copy here.
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