Wilytank So, it's been a few months since my review of Gorguts' 'Obscura' was published. Surely by now I must understand the album for the musical genius and divinity that it is and change my mind about the negative score I gave it, yes? No. I have not gone back to that album since the review for the simple reason that I refuse to listen to terrible music more than I need to. However, it's time to leave the past to the past. I have moved on to their followup album, 'From Wisdom to Hate', which is a great improvement over 'Obscura'. Unfortunately, that still does not make it very good.

First, I'm pleased to say that the production has improved and it's a lot more apparent that the guys in Gorguts are interested in actually playing their music to an actual key than making noise with the guitar strings. This coincides with the album's whole style which now sounds like a sort of post death metal album influenced by parts of "Nostalgia", one of the better pieces from 'Obscura'. With this particular concept, Gorguts have showed some promise. This post-metal concept is a lot more likeable than the "dissonant" noise that was existent in 'Obscura'.

What's the problem then? Why is this score rather low? The problem is how Gorguts actually executes this concept. As the album goes on, it just really seems to drag with all the slower paced riffs that I begin to feel like the playing is just really uninspired that it just drains my attention to the point of boredom. It gets worse when I look at a more modern example: Ulcerate. When I listen to 'Everything Is Fire' or 'The Destroyers of All', I get this sense of nihility mixed with a little misanthropy to make a really negative sounding atmosphere. I'm just not getting that here on 'From Wisdom to Hate'. The thematic elements are drastically different between the two. While Ulcerate have a rather negative view on the human condition, 'From Wisdom to Hate''s lyrics contain some bullshit about human transcendence. I get the feeling from the piece "Unearthing the Past" and "Elusive Treasures that Luc Lemay wanted to be an archaeologist before becoming a musician because both of those songs basically talk about how cool archaeology is.

The point I'm trying to make is that this post death metal style of music doesn't work as well in the setting that Gorguts presents here on 'From Wisdom to Hate'. Death metal tends to be much better when it has more negative energy. Not to say I don't appreciate Gorguts' change in style to something better than 'Obscura', but better does not equal good. At the publishing time of this review the band hasn't put out anything since this album; but even with the amount of time they would have had to change things up further, I'm not too enthusiastic as to what the product will be.

Wilytank Don't you just hate it when an album that people can't stop whoring about turns out to be a load of shit? Case in point: Gorguts' 'Obscura'. "If you do not like this album, you are not a fan of death metal." said one guy somewhere. Yeah, I don't think that my liking of Bolt Thrower, Immolation, and more is all for naught for me hating on this terrible, overrated album. It's not intriguingly intelligent. It's not headbangingly awesome. It's not even dark or disturbing. It's just fucking annoying.

Let me tell you what guitar wankery is. Guitar wankery is when you try to write and play your guitar riffs making them sound all technical and challenging but forget to make them actually interesting to listen to. 'Obscura' is filled with so much guitar wankery that the guitarists might as well be shoving their dicks through the guitar strings, and it is this blight that takes this album furthest toward the wrong direction if Gorguts wanted to make an album that was truly interesting. When there are songs that actually do have riffs that are somewhat interesting such as the post metalesque "Nostalgia" or the doomier "Clouded", you can rest assured that there will be plenty of wankery added to the song to level it all out. And the funny thing is that people say that it's the vocals that are the weakest part as if good vocals made any difference in death metal.

The other bad thing about this album is that it's an hour long. This review may have been (slightly) higher if Gorguts decided to cut a few songs and make the album less than 40 minutes. If they cooled it with the incessant wankery, maybe they would make the hour long trek less irritating. Sitting through this album as it stands isn't going to produce any memorable moments. It's just going to make you want to bash your head in.

The little melodic aspects that actually are existent in some of the songs, post metal vibes on "Nostalgia", and even the slower "Clouded" are simply not enough to save this album from the singularity of terribleness. Everyone knows of releases that leave listeners wanting something more; but here with 'Obscura', I'm left wanting less. This guitar wankery (used for the whogivesafuck-tienth time) makes this album so irritating that certain Merzbow pieces look like the best pieces of music in the world in comparison. So, no. I do not want something more. I just want to stop remembering.

UMUR "...and Then Comes Lividity" is the debut demo tape by Canadian death metal act Gorguts. The demo led to a record deal with Roadrunner Records. There are five tracks on the demo of which the first is a short intro. The playing time is 15:07 minutes. The demo is of course long out of print but it´s available on the Galy Records "Demo Anthology (2003)" compilation album.

I read about this demo in a Danish metal magazine I was reading at the time the demo was released (1990). I remember the reviewer praised the demo very highly and listening to "...and Then Comes Lividity" today I do understand his enthusiasm. Lots of water has run under the bridge since though and my experience with the demo today is a bit different than it might have been back then. The music is pretty old school US influenced death metal. The playing is on a pretty high technical level. References to Death are inevitable, both because Luc Lemay has a similar high pitched growling style to Chuck Schuldiner (Death), but also because the riffing style on "...and Then Comes Lividity" is comparable to the riffing style on "Leprosy (1988)" and especially to the riffing style on "Spiritual Healing (1990)". Both classic early death metal albums by Death.

Out of the five songs on the demo only the short intro "...And Then Comes Lividity" and "Haematological Allergy" made it unto Gorguts debut album "Considered Dead (1991)". The music on the demo is generally on a pretty high level but I´ve always felt that the early releases by Gorguts lacked memorability and that includes the songs on "...and Then Comes Lividity".

The sound quality is allright but not really good. Don´t expect a professional sounding production.

"...and Then Comes Lividity" is a testimony to how technical death metal sounded in 1990. Only a few years later the genre had progressed considerably and if you compare this demo to the output by some of the most prolific acts in the technical death metal genre like Atheist, Cynic, Pestilence and Death it doesn´t really come off as a high quality product. The comparison might not be all that fair but it´s meant to give you a picture of the quality level of the music on the demo. This is of course a demo and that should be taken into consideration before hard judgements are made. Gorguts do show some promising signs of future greatness but to me as a casual listener and not so much a fan, I consider this a fan release only. 2.5 - 3 stars are deserved.

Conor Fynes 'The Erosion Of Sanity' - Gorguts (7/10)

Gorguts' second album is one that most every death metal afficionado has heard, or will hear at some point. It is widely considered a classic of death metal, and following in the footsteps of their American peers, this Canadian group is a band that I have come to respect quite a bit. Although they would reach their true artistic zenith with the third album 'Obscura', 'The Erosion Of Sanity' is a strong album from the band. Albeit not yet having the innovation and mind-boggling direction that Gorguts would become better known for, I would still sake out 'Erosion' as one of the stronger conventional death records I have heard.

Although I would not consider myself a fan of much death metal, I have listened to enough to identify what I consider to be the better, and less glorious aspects of certain bands' sounds within the genre. As an album that came out in the early 90's, Gorguts here has a sound that is easily identified with many other contemporaries from North America; most notably the style's pioneers, Death. While I would say that Gorguts takes a sound of their own entirely on the third album, 'The Erosion Of Sanity' feels like a disciple to mid-era Death, particularly from that band's second album 'Leprosy' up to 'Individual Thought Patterns'. The guitar tones, solos, and even vocalist Luc Lemay's growl are very close to what Death was doing only a few years before. For any death metal fan, this is not necessarily a bad thing- and Gorguts pays an impressive tribute to Death here at that- although it has nothing on the sense of awe that 'Obscura' gave me.

The music is not particularly heavy or technical by today's standards, but there are riffs and sections here that sound as powerful as they ever have. 'Condemned To Obscurity' has one of the best riffs I have ever heard in death metal; an amazing song that is led in by a classical piano introduction, and then erupts with this apocalyptic pinch-harmonic fueled barrage that gives me chills. The riffs are potentially immense here, and there's even some nice bass to be heard here, provided it manages to peak through the mix. Lemay's vocals are strong, although he does sound like a disciple to Chuck Schuldiner here, more than anything. The thing that I am not finding myself too impressed with are the drums, played here by Stephane Provencher. While he certainly knows how to beat a drumkit to death, there are plenty of sections here where he uses blastbeats, and they do not work nearly as well as they should have. The muddy drum mixing does not help matters much either.

While I would not consider myself to be a fan of much that the death metal style offers, I believe that in its conventional form, the early 90s was the best period for the sound, and an album like 'The Erosion Of Sanity' backs up this notion. Gorguts would not break out from under the thumb of Death and other American bands until their third album, and while nothing else that Gorguts has ever done can raise a finger to 'Obscura', 'The Erosion Of Sanity' comes in second place; a fine, classic-sounding record for death metal.

Conor Fynes 'Obscura' - Gorguts (9/10)

Widely considered to be one of the most enduring examples of experimental metal, 'Obscura' is an album that has already sparked plenty of discussion long before the writing of this review. Released in 1998, it has since influenced a wave of left-leaning bands in death metal, each seeking to bring the genre to the next level, much like Gorguts did here. Make no mistake; 'Obscura' is a fairly tough cookie to chew at first, even for someone already well-exposed to a variety of extreme metal. As jarring and weird as death metal gets, Gorguts' music here is well worth being considered a classic, although it took me quite a few listens to finally agree with that statement.

As a baseline, death metal is typically about heavy riffs, furious drumming, and a harsh vocal style of growling that typically obscures the lyrics. Gorguts is clearly a death metal act and shares each of these traits, but it is the wealth of additional elements to the music of Gorguts that makes the music stand out. Although a band with the name Gorguts would not tend to inspire thoughts of jazz or neoclassical music, there are sounds of both woven deep into what the band does. Gorguts' sense of dynamic ebbs and flows much like a jazz group, and the dissonant harmonies between the bass and guitars sometimes brings to mind a number of 20th century composers. Although the hour length of the album seems all the more vast due to the jarring and dissonant nature of the music, there is not a moment where the quality lets up, although for music like this, a slightly shorter experience may have been a little more effective.

Death metal vocalists tend to sound quite similar, and while Luc Lemay still employs a familiar style of growls and raspy barks, there is a ferocity to his voice that is rarely heard in death metal. Instead of going the route of low,virtually inaudible gutturals, Lemay's delivery is rooted in bringing the demons out of his throat; and his voice sounds very strained throughout, although in a good way. That being said, Lemay's vocals are the weakest element of 'Obscura', although that is more a cause of the jaw-dropping musicianship, rather than a fault of the vocals. The odd and atypical ways the guitar is used on this album create some very strange and quirky sounds, as is evidenced within the first ten seconds of the record. It sounds like death metal riffs are being channeled through a wah-wah pedal, but whatever it is, the strange guitar style is both one of the album's greatest strengths, and a big reason why Gorguts is met with controversy. This is not the sort of death metal that will even please most death metal fans; the out-of-tune sound of the riffs is a little uncomfortable at first, but the quality sinks it after some listens have come and gone.

'Obscura' was never an album I disliked perse, but it was at first a pretty difficult album to crack. Although I would not consider myself any stranger to avant-garde metal or experimental music in general, the complexity of the music here demands many listens to truly be experienced. It still could have been a little shorter, but 'Obscura' is undoubtedly a masterpiece of death metal.