Obscura - Diluvium

Band leader Steffen Kummerer has managed quite the rotating line-up since starting Obscura in 2002, yet the German supergroup of sorts has quite successfully picked up the technical death metal torch for the more than likely retired Necrophagist, of which two members for a few years had become part of Obscura. Kummerer’s vision has kept the music focused from the start of the project, but the variety of talent and creative input he’s been able to incorporate into the band has helped keep Obscura’s sound fresh. There haven’t been any changes since 2016’s Akróasis, however, which I actually don’t mind since until now, the proggier than usual Akróasis has been my favorite Obscura album.

Diluvium took me by surprise, perhaps because it’s come at a time when not a lot of technical death metal has been really flooring me (save for Rivers of Nihil), but it is perhaps the most representative of Obscura’s works so far, capturing the variety of musical techniques that made Akróasis such a dynamic listen, and the stunning displays of wild instrumental prowess from albums like Cosmogenesisand Retribution.

The album is full of highlights from song to song with few real moments of stagnancy. The blistering “Clandestine Stars” starts the albums with the dizzying guitarwork and furious blast beats to be expected from Obscura at this point, integrating the effects-laden vocals that made such a prominence on Akróasis. The song features a few dazzling guitar solos and even a fretless bass solo that most guitarists would probably have a hard time replicating at their most comfortable octave. The album’s second track, “Emergent Evolution” makes prominent use of Akróasis’ primary vocal effect and creates possibly the most unique and melodic vocal section Obscura have ever had. The title track takes a more straightforward technical death metal approach, providing a vivid display of the members’ instrumental virtuosities.

“Mortification of the Vulgar Sun” injects an ominous low-register vocal melody and a groovy guitar lead into a more mid-tempo approach to the band’s technical approach before taking a proggy twist with the cleaner guitar lead that alternates with the latter half’s heavier sections. The song “Ethereal Skies” focuses on dynamic guitar interplay, from the more mid-tempo melodies to faster leads sweep-picking solos that give me carpel tunnel just thinking about them. “Convergence” brings some more focus back to the bass and the vocals with the kind of bass-work and soloing that the band have kind of made their own and a haunting clean vocal melody whose effects make it sound like a voice from deep space is calling out to galaxies far away. It’s definitely the most spiritual the band sound at any point on this album.

The song “Ekpyrosis” readjusts to more of a traditional techdeath sound, more akin to Retribution during its intro, but the drum performances are worth the more typical sound and the wailing guitar lead that builds from the relative calmness during the song’s bridge redirects the song to a much less predictable musical flurry. “The Seventh Aeon” mixes some black metal-esque guitar dissonance with some jazzy bass soloing to keep it grounded in the band’s technical death metal territory. “The Conjuration” is one of the more bellowing tracks, with an introductory riff that channels low end guitar groove with a ton of energy, though it does highlight perhaps my one main complaint with this album: the mixing of the low-end. And this is a problem throughout pretty much all of technical death metal, the low presence of bass tones to ensure that the cacophonous high-end technicality is not flooded out. Songs like this one would have a lot more punch if it were just mixed to really let the low-end rumble in the places it needs to.

The conclusive epic near the end of the album, “An Epilogue to Infinity”, does much what “Weltseele” did on Akróasis but not quite as theatrically. Coincidentally, the bass seems much better mixed on this song than those preceding it. It’s a well-rounded finishing piece for the album that integrates the spectacular drumming, guitar, and bass work of all sorts on the album, the melodic and tampered-with clean vocals, and even calm passages and black metal-tinged guitar parts before the final track “A Last Farewell” cools the album down with a soothing bass/guitar piece over some atmospheric ambience.

Overall, I found myself even more impressed with Diluvium than I thought I would be. It’s an album that, while open and full of entry points for new listeners, doesn’t slow down for the uninitiated to catch up too easily. It’s full of the proggy, highly technical substance that the band have made their name on and is very much a true techdeath album in the classiest sense of the word. Yet it finds ways to frequently break from the mold and the clichés that overpopulate the subgenre. I doubt Diluvium will be breaking that many new people into Obscura, but I’d say one of the year’s best technical death metal albums as good of a place to start as any.