We are genuinely thrilled today to blow up a grenade of sights, sounds, and information regarding an eagerly awaited new album from the Indiana-based death metal extremists in Obscene.
The name of the new album, which is the band’s third full-length, is Agony & Wounds. It’s now set for release on July 12th by Nameless Grave Records. As you can see, it’s adorned by eye-catching and mind-bending cover art created by the wickedly talented Brad Moore.
The new music turns out to be every bit as macabre and mind-blowing as the artwork, though it is ruthlessly brutalizing as well, and thus it legitimately represents a significant step forward for a band that has already made a cult name for itself among death-worshipping denizens of the underground.
Which brings us to the first song from the album that you’ll be able to hear, and that we’re maliciously thrilled to premiere today. Get on your knees and prepare to receive “The Reaper’s Blessing“.
Band Photo by Scott Wilson
In the relatively compact space of four minutes Obscene create a spinning kaleidoscope of sonic terrors. The song is alternately hulking and humongous, demented and delirious, morbid and agonizing — ice-cold and red-hot and ultimately as eerie as a haunted house — but it’s also so well-structured, cleverly nuanced, and diabolically infectious that it’s likely to take up residence in your brain whether you want it to or not.
To break that down a bit more: The periodic and primitive grooves in the song are bludgeoning and bone-shaking, but the blasting is equally obliterating, the kick drums and bass sound like thunder, and the drum-fills are eye-popping. The riffing comes in viciously swarming bursts, groovesome in their own maniacal way, but the guitars also grievously moan and the bass gets chances to deviantly frolic.
Darting and rapidly writhing fretwork further fuels the madness in the music, and that reaches a crescendo in an electrifying and thoroughly berserk guitar solo. Speaking of madness, the screaming vocals seem to have lost any connection to sanity long ago, and even the gruesomely distorted yells and horrid howls that eventually arrive also sound deranged.
Near the end, the music convulses in an even more intense paroxysm of high-speed violence than what has come before — yet the song doesn’t end in that explosion of blood-spray and fire. Instead, we hear the creepy ring of piano keys, as if played by a ghost in that crumbling mansion on the hill.
If you’ve made your way through our own wordy thoughts about this new song, now we’d like to share Obscene‘s own thoughts about it:
“We are excited and proud to share ‘The Reaper’s Blessing‘ off our forthcoming LP Agony & Wounds. Musically, it has all the staples of the Obscene sound with crushing riffs, world eating bass tones, demolishing drums, and tortured vocals. With every Obscene release, we remain true to our core tenets while expanding death’s valley. The climax for this track is far and away the most intense in our catalog. Brandon really pushed himself on this one. Come, reap.”
So you see, a hell of a lot of hellish things happen in just this one song. Imagine if you can what will happen in the other 10 that fill out Agony & Wounds.
OBSCENE is:
Kyle Shaw – Vocals
Mike Morgan – Guitars
Roy Hayes – Bass
Brandon Howe – Drums
Agony & Wounds was engineered and mixed by Noah Buchanan at Mercenary Studios and mastered by Dan Lowndes at Resonance Sound Studios.
The record is recommended for fans of Asphyx, early At the Gates, Brutality, and Morgoth. It will be released on limited vinyl (300 on violet wax, and 200 on gold), CD, and digital by Nameless Grave Records and on cassette by Desert Wastelands Productions. Find pre-orders at the label’s webshop and Bandcamp via the links below.
PRE-ORDER:
https://namelessgraverecords.com/
https://obscenedeathmetal.bandcamp.com/album/agony-wounds
OBSCENELY FOLLOW OBSCENE:
http://www.facebook.com/obscenedm
https://www.instagram.com/obscenedeathmetal_official