Mittwoch, 31. August 2016

obscura - illegimitation

obscura's "akróasis" remained pretty high on my vinyl rotation since i bought this baby in march this year. such an unbelievably strong technical death metal record, definitely one of my top ten releases at this point of the year. because that album is so good, naturally i wanted the remaining releases on vinyl as well. that proved to be impossible for a price i am willed to pay. these damn things are that pricey, so i will wait it out. fingers crossed for re-pressings.
actually there was one vinyl release of obscura that was available, their compilation release called "illegimitation" from 2012. the band realised this output via crowd-funding and it contains their demo from 2003, three songs of the pre-production for the "cosmogenesis" album from 2006 and three cover songs to represent the influences certain bands had on obscura. in 2002 the guys started out under the name of illegimitation and sounded quite different.
the demo songs show the band in an state of progression. the stuff sounds way more like swedish school and by far not as technical as familiar pieces. in the following years the band changed its name and a lot of members. steffen kummerer is the only founding member by now. in 2006 the album "retribution" was released and in 2009, for the first time on relapse records, "cosmogenesis" saw the light of day. pre-production for the latter album already started in 2006 and from that sessions the three songs "incarnated", "open the gates" and "headworm" found their way onto this release.
those sound great and more like the obscura i knew from "akróasis". the cover songs are pure tech-death greatness. i knew the death and the cynic song. listening to the atheist cover, i should listen more to the original. the presentation is pretty nice. gatefold cover with printed dust sleeve containing very interesting liner notes to the early days of the band by steffen kummerer himself. all topped off by matching clear red vinyl. probably just a fanboy record but worthwhile to me. good price too. released on the band's own label, voice of the soul records. 2012.