UMUR "Dying of Everything" is the eleventh full-length studio album by US, Florida based death metal act Obituary. The album was released through Relapse Records in January 2023. It´s the successor to the eponymously titled album from 2017, although the two studio albums are bridged by a couple of live album releases, so while there are quite a few years between the two studio albums, Obituary have kept busy touring and releasing the above mentioned live albums. The lineup hasn´t changed since the last album, and actually has been stabile since 2012 when lead guitarist Kenny Andrews joined.

Obituary have always been incredibly consistent in terms of quality and style, with only a few slightly less interesting releases (compared to their best) to their name throughout their by now very long career. When a new Obituary album arrives it´s never a question if it´s great...it´s only a question how great it is compared to the best releases in their massive discography. I´ve read interviews with the band, where they said, that they had probably spend more time than on any album before fine tuning and tweaking the material on "Dying of Everything", and while the differences between this release and the previous albums by Obituary aren´t significant, I stil think the extra care and attention to detail have paid off.

Stylistically this is at its core Obituary as they´ve sounding like since 1989, with brutal downtuned death metal riffs (often groove laden), blistering lead guitar work, great organic drumming, and of course John Tardy´s ultra brutal yet intelligble growling vocals in front. So far...so good. So it´s the little details found in the songwriting which make parts of "Dying of Everything" stand out. I notice an old school thrash metal current on many tracks (already heard on album opener "Barely Alive"), which is something new on an Obituary release. It´s always tastefully incorporated though, so it doesn´t mess with the core sound, but it´s such a treat to hear Obituary try something a bit different. Again it´s nothing groundbreaking and only little details, but those details are important for a seasoned artists like Obituary, to make their albums stand out from each other.

"Dying of Everything" opens really strong with the above mentioned "Barely Alive" and then the two groove laden and heavy tracks "The Wrong Time" and "Without a Conscience". The album continues with other great tracks and a few less remarkable ones (although still great), and overall "Dying of Everything" is a strong album release by Obituary. The sound production is suitingly heavy, brutal, and organic, and Obituary have arguably released a strong album. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

UMUR "Dead" is a live album release by US, Florida based death metal act Obituary. It was released through Roadrunner Records in April 1998. By then the band were split-up. Tired of touring and planning on doing more normal things like raising families, the band called it quits. They would reform after 6 years in 2003 but when "Dead" was released it was a final testament from one of the greats in death metal. The album was recorded Live at Axis, Boston MA on the 10th of September 1997 and released by Roadrunner Records in April 1998.

The setlist includes songs from all 5 studio releases that preceeded this live album and thereby successfully covering the band´s career up until then. There are of course several classic death metal tracks on the album like "Chopped in Half", "Turned Inside Out", "'Til Death", "Don't Care", "Slowly We Rot" and "I'm in Pain". Personally I miss a few of my favorites like "Infected" and "Find the Arise" but live setlists can´t satisfy everyone and overall the selection of songs work fine. There are 16 tracks on the album which lasts 62:52 minutes so I´m sure no one will have complaints about the number of songs included or the album´s length. The production by Obituary and Steven Remote is of a good quality. No raw bootleg sound quality here. Unfortunately this also means that the songs are mostly sound very close to the studio versions and it does drag my rating down a bit. There simply isn´t that rawness and authenticity you get from the best extreme metal live releases.

All in all "Dead" isn´t one of those live albums that gets me all excited and leaves me with a burning desire to have been there when it was recorded but it´s a quality release that should please most fans of the band and a 3.5 star (70%) rating is warranted.

UMUR "Back From the Dead" is the 5th full-length studio album by US, Florida based death metal act Obituary. The album was released through Roadrunner Records in March 1997. It´s the successor to "World Demise" from 1994 and it would be the last studio album in the band´s original run as they would go on a longer hiatus in the years 1997-2003. It´s the first Obituary album not to be produced by Scott Burns and not to be recorded at Morrisound Recording, Tampa, Florida, as the band instead tapped Jaime Locke to co-produce the album with the band, and opted to record the material for the album at Criteria Recording, Miami, Florida.

Stylistically the sound and style of "Back From the Dead" are in many ways similar to the sound and style of "The End Complete (1992)" (although the production style is a bit different). "World Demise (1994)" took the band´s music in a slightly different direction and also introduced slightly more "serious" lyrics dealing with among other things environmental issues. The material on "Back From the Dead" is back to the gore/horror/violence themed death metal of the band´s early releases. The music is ultra heavy death metal, featuring crushingly heavy and groove oriented riffs and rhythms, but also the occasionally faster paced part (opening track "Threatening Skies" is an example of a track featuring a relatively high pace in the context of Obituary). There is a focus on simplicity and heaviness, and of course the ultra brutal and distinct sounding growling vocals by John Tardy. Lead guitarist Allen West delivers his usual screaming chromatic solos.

Although the band try their hand at adding rap vocals to the "Bullituary (remix)" track (and aren´t very successful at that), which is definitely a new feature in their music, the material on "Back From the Dead" are otherwise classic Obituary. You could argue that "Back From the Dead" is the album where they stopped developing their sound and instead began rehashing ideas, but I don´t appreciate the negative implications of the word rehash, so let me instead rephrase that to the band using a tried and true formula to produce high quality death metal the way only Obituary can do it. There´s nothing wrong with using songwriting ideas you´ve used before, if you implement those ideas in strong and powerful material, and that´s what Obituary do here.

The sound production was the least bottom heavy production on an Obituary album up until then, but "Back From the Dead" is still a well produced album, featuring a sharp, raw, and detailed sound production, which suits the material perfectly. Other than their failed attempt at producing a rap metal track (which thankfully closes the album and therefore can be skipped), Obituary prove once again why they are one of the most unique and successful artists in death metal. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

siLLy puPPy Starting out as Executioner and then changing to Xecutioner, the Tardy brothers not only changed their band project’s moniker to OBITUARY in 1988 but in the process took that leap of faith out of the cauldrons of the early thrash metal scene to become one of the pioneers of early death metal along with other Tampa, Florida bands such as Death and Morbid Angel. With the Tardy brothers which includes vocalist John and drummer Donald being the only constant members in OBITUARY’s multi-decade history, the lineup has been quite fluid and on the band’s debut SLOWLY WE ROT featured the Tardy bros with guitarist Trevor Peres, bassist Daniel Tucker and lead guitarist Allen West.

Released in 1989, SLOWLY WE ROT was unleashed right at the forefront of old school death metal gurgling up from the underground and launched OBITUARY into the position where they would become one of the most successful bands in the genre but would have to undergo unstable lineups and a couple more albums before death metal would finally emerge as a major metal force. This debut album is a bit different than albums that came after mostly because this one was recorded in standard tuning before the band switched to drop D tuning which gave OBITUARY that evil as fuck sound but even so SLOWLY WE ROT is a major death metal powerhouse that sounds as ominous as any other.

With a slight ambient intro to “Internal Bleeding” OBITUARY adopted the then standard characteristics of death metal such as the heavily distorted guitar riffs, palm muting, tremolo picking and deep growly vocals along with double kick and blast beat drumming but the band set themselves apart by creating a no nonsense approach to death metal while bands like Death were keen on jettisoning into more progressive grounds and Morbid Angel was keen on abstract riffing techniques and guitar squeals. OBITUARY has always been fairly even keel with straight forward death metal aggression and easy to comprehend compositional methodologies. OBITUARY also avoided the gore and occult themes and simply focused on good old fashioned mortality which is perhaps the scariest human subject of all.

Steeped with twelve rampaging death metal tracks, SLOWLY WE ROT delivered the immediacy of hardcore punk with short yet to the point outbursts of aggression with only one track, “Intoxicated” venturing over the four minute mark. Musically the tracks feature full gestated death metal that employed quickened tempos with various sections that are faster than others with lead guitar and more sophisticated almost jazzy drumming styles but for the most part this debut is a guitar driven chugfest with growly vocals narrating tales of horrific suffering, eternal damnation and human fragility. While by today’s standards this is pretty straight forward death metal, these early recordings have a sense of purity that allows the true nature of the genre to shine through without the added baggage of experimentation.

Overall OBITUARY’s debut may not be considered one of the top picks of early death metal but due to its early status as true death metal that was totally out of the world of thrash metal, it has a special place in the hearts of death metal historians who love death metal’s less complex nascency. OBITUARY would dominate the 90s as one of the top death metal acts but his debut shouldn’t be missed either as it shows the band in its early ferocity in all its rawness before becoming one of the top extreme metal bands of the world. Satisfying and too the point, SLOWLY WE ROT is anything but slow however it very well may make your soul rot! But then again isn’t that why we listen to this manic maelstrom of mind numbing madness?

UMUR "World Demise" is the 4th full-length studio album by US, Florida based death metal act Obituary. The album was released through Roadrunner Records in September 1994. It´s the successor to "The End Complete" from 1992, which was the most commercially successful release in Obituary´s career, selling around 250.000 copies worldwide. While "World Demise" didn´t quite reach those sales numbers, it was still a successful release for the band, and they continued to tour and conquer the world during this period. Like the three preceding albums by the band, "World Demise" was also recorded at Morrisound Studios and produced by Scott Burns and Obituary.

"World Demise" is the odd one out though when taking a look at the five albums Obituary released in their original run until they disbanded (went on a longer hiatus) in 1998. The odd one out status is mainly a consequence of the change from horror/gore themed lyrics to lyrics about environmental issues (also obvious from the cover artwork), politics and social issues, although there are still some lyrics featured on the album about death, horror, and gore. Stylistically this is brick heavy and groove oriented death metal featuring heavy riffs and rhythms, screaming guitar solos (although they are fewer here than they were on the albums preceding this one), and John Tardy´s distinct sounding brutal growling vocals in front.

Although this is in no way a groove metal album, Obituary definitely flirt with that genre during the album, but on the other hand, they´ve always been groove oriented, so nothing groundbreaking is happening here in that respect. The addition of a few samples and industrial effects/influences on a couple of tracks (and the tribal percussion on a couple of tracks), don´t make this album sound much differnt from what came before. To my ears the material are slightly more formulaic in nature/structure compared to the more adventurous and unpredictable structures of the tracks on "The End Complete (1992)", and it´s not a positive feature if you ask me. Highlights include tracks like "Don't Care", "Redefine", "Burned In", "Final Thoughts" and "Kill for Me" (at least until it ends with a couple of minutes of unnecessary silence and samples), but "World Demise" is overall a very consistent quality release.

The sound production is clear, detailed, and heavy, and it brings out the brutality of the music well. I could have done with a slightly less polished production approach though, and I think the material would have prospered from a more raw and stripped down sound. All things considered "World Demise" is still a high quality death metal release by Obituary, but it´s a step down in the songwriting department from it´s direct predecessor. A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.