What is Extreme Metal? I often find myself asking that question. To me it can cover a wide range of genres, for example Black Metal, Death Metal, even Thrash to some degree. However, what I really think it is, is a catch all term for bands whom just play loud, fast, aggressive Metal, the sort of artists who you can’t really sandwich into a singular or sub-categorized bracket, someone like Cradle Of Filth for example.
Anyway who cares about my musings we’re here to talk about German Extreme Metallers Obscurity. A band who since their inception in 1997 have blended together the likes of Melodic Death/ Black Metal, with Viking themes, although I won’t use that fetid term ‘Viking Metal”. Anyway, I can’t really say that any of their albums are regarded as classic, but they’re certainly a band with a strong work ethic and history. Today we come to their ninth full length release Skogarmaors, put out through Trollzorn Records.
There’s no time for pontification as the album opens with the melodic and indeed epic Blackened Death tones of Wodanaz Kriger. It’s a song full of emotion, aggression and undiluted Extreme Metal. I particularly love the mixture of more straight barbarity and melodic portions, not to mention ever evolving and interesting vocals. I can’t really say that it gets much more intriguing from here on, it’s pretty much track after track of a similar idea, but that said it is well written and enjoyable Extreme Metal, I particularly liked Niedertracht, Konstantinopel and the title track.
In fact I have to say one big perk of Obscurity is that they aren’t afraid to be catchy, there are plenty of brilliant vocal and instrumental hooks to keep you listening. It’s a trait too many Extreme Metal bands often forget in pursuit of brutality. As the second half of the album rolls in it’s more of the same as Glod En Isa proves, that said I’m still entertained by this point. Keeping up the memorability is DiesAter, although it is at this point that the melodic nature of Obscurity fades into well, obscurity. By which I mean that it becomes very predictable, you could easily cut a few tracks off of the end here and have a far more well rounded release.
All in all is Skogarmaors a ground-breaking Metal release? No, in fact it’s quite the opposite, it’s happy to bubble upon the surface, creating satisfying but uneventful ripples. Is that okay? Yeah sure, it might be as ‘my first Metal album’ as possible but it’s well written, memorable and a good bit of fun. With the right dedication and in the right moment this could be an album with a lot of replay factor. Its biggest downside would have to be the length though, it’s far too long for what it is, remember Obscurity, size isn’t everything.
(7/10 George Caley)
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