Obscura - Retribution

February 8, 2010

Reviewer: Matt

I reviewed Obscura’s widely-praised sophomore album Cosmogenesis last year and admitted a fair degree of boredom with jazzy, “progressive” death metal, which I felt then and feel now has well worn out its welcome.  Still I rated it respectably high for its technical accomplishments and the variety of songwriting techniques on display.  Retribution is Obscura’s debut album, released in 2006 on Vots Records and now reissued by Relapse with silly new cover art and a few bonus tracks.

Overall Retribution is a stronger, more satisfying release than Cosmogenesis.  While still technical and overindulgent, Retribution is more brutal and leaner on pretense than its follow-up.  The songs a band chooses to cover are often somewhat indicative of their sound, and on Retribution Obscura chose to cover Death’s “Lack of Comprehension” off the album Human, which is a pretty clear influence and good point of reference for Retribution.  The similarity is pretty obvious in the riffs, which are mostly fast, fluid leads played with jazz styling, although there’s little on Retribution of the jazzy drumming of Human, and Retribution thankfully lacks the distracting bass guitar noodling of Cosmogenesis.

Retribution is comfortably diverse, with plenty of brutality to satisfy those who found the heaviness somewhat transparent on Cosmogenesis.  Keyboards and clean vocals make very rare and welcomely understated appearances, and aimless guitar heroics are kept to a minimum.  The strongest passages are those played at top speed (“Unhinged”, “Alone”), where Obscura remind one of a less epic and grandiose early At the Gates.  Obscura transition adroitly among various riff patterns and tempos, sparing the listener for the most part the scattershot arrangement and conceptual vacuity of your typical modern progressive death metal band.  Here and there you’ll hear suggestion of latter Gorguts (“Exit Life”) and deftly sequenced riffs cycling above dense rhythmic interplay.  That’s where Obscura shine: being progressive by conceiving of new ways to arrange melody and rhythm, instead of trying to “sound” progressive through production effects.  Regrettably, too much of the album (“Nothing”, “Sentiment”) dwells, in predictable prog metal land, with stop-start-squeal groove metal riffs, saccharine rock solos, and pointless detours into quiet interludes.

If you just found out about Obscura last year you might find it worth hearing this album.  Fans of Cosmogenesis will definitely want to hear where this band started out and will likely appreciate a heavier, less pretentious work.  Those who weren’t sold on Cosmogenesis might also find value in Retribution, as it’s a well-written, professional, and enjoyable album. 

Release Date: February 16, 2010
Label: Relapse Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  Humankind
2.  Nothing
3.  Unhinged
4.  None Shall Be Spared
5.  Alone
6.  Hymn to a Nocturnal Visitor
7.  Intoxicated
8.  Exit Life
9.  Sentiment
10.  Sweet Silence
11.  Lack of Comprehension
        (Death Cover)
12.  Synthetically Revived
13.  God of Emptiness

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