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Band: Obscurum
Album title: Lost
Release date: 13 April 2014
Label: Self-Released
Tracklist:
01. Celebrate Death
02. One Direction To Hell
03. Spiritual Tower
04. Immortal Identity
05. She Came
06. Serenity
07. Isolated
08. Morbid Night
Slovenian underground extreme metal scene seems to be on the rise this days, at least in quantity of the bands if not in quality, and one of newcommers is one-man band Obscurum. What we have here is the debut album which passed by rather unnoticeably, not only by the foreign metal scene, but as well in the local one, even though it was released almost six months ago. So the name Lost suits quite fine to this release and maybe with some better promotion it could reach more fans of that primitive form of black/death metal and not end in the abyss of things forgotten by man.
With Obscurum's debut release you'll not discover anything new in the musical sense, everything in the sound of this act is loyal to that mystical Scandinavian second wave form of black and death metal which started evolving in late 80s and early 90s. Obscurum with these eight featured tracks serves with uncompromising extreme fast tempos sometimes crossed with mid paced ones like in "She Came" for example, then well played tremolo picks, with some melodic inlays, simple, yet precise and sometimes too linear drumming, but yet with structural emphasis on the atmosphere, that gets richer when here and there some strange psychedelic synth sounds come into the picture, just listen to those cosmic interferences in "Serenity". Well, if you can imagine a mix of the Darkthrone's debut album Soulside Journey, early era Mayhem, some Belphegor's rage and add a touch of that typical old schoolish Celtic Frost groove then you are near to Obscurum's Lost. And still there's more as I was pretty much surprised when guitars take that melodic blackened thrash approach as used before by Immortal, that's best heard in the rather outstanding "Morbid Night". Otherwise on the rest of the album could be used some more imagination and ideas that could enrich the final outcome. Vocal job by Mr. Obscurum is one of the brightest points in here, quite mesmerizing and powerful blend of black metal shrieks and death growls slowly paints the ambiance with rage and darkness. Too linear compositions still find kind of a flow, but even compulsory blast beats can't save the album from averageness and if you are not really a true fan of the genre I will understand that you'll skip this one. The thing could be saved and became more appealing with more depth, maybe texture in the production and with some more layers added in the final mix, but still, I believe that the point of satisfying that narrow circle of fans of underground black metal is reached, thus if you are one of them then don't dare to miss Lost.
Obscurum with his debut album adds another stone into the vast mosaic of black metal, even though not bringing anything new, but in a peculiar way it shows what was really black metal before its expansion. Lost certaily brought me back in the time when everything was still so innocent and truly devilish, but Obscurum is not the only one doing this, right? Btw... Obscurum is already working on his sophomore album and of course, I expect everything to be at least some steps more developed and arranged in the right way. For orders and more informations please feel free to write at this e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Review written by: T.V.
Rating: 6/10
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