Warthur Despite sharing a name with Gorguts' most unusual album, Obscura's style of progressively-inclined technical death metal is actually decidedly accessible. Displaying a knack for balancing technicality with brutality, Obscura blend melodic elements and gentler moments (such as the acoustic introduction to the album at the start of Septuagint) and high-energy progressive riffs into a fast-paced death metal framework and reliably come up trumps. Not a classic of the genre, but there's certainly less interesting technical death metal albums out there that have won more attention. Progressive metal and technical death metal fans should take the time to heed this one, and maybe Obscura will start to get the prominence they deserve.

bonnek One album further in their career, one more leap ahead. Obscura have quickly evolved from a faceless Thrash metal band to a most entertaining modern Technical Thrash/Death unit. Under this brutal surface sit complex guitar patterns that have traded typical death/thrash-based riffing for multiple bars spanning melodic riffs that lend the music a complex progressive quality.

The songwriting is top notch and quite varied. The opening track may start as an old Metallica classic but it quickly evolves to a brutal Death Metal attack that gives way for a more relaxed Opethian prog metal passage with very enjoyable psychedelic clean vocals and just that bit of vocoder to make them sound even more out-worldly. A crazy speed-Death finale rounds it up. It's a scenario that reoccurs in different forms and variations on this album. New tricks and development appear regularly throughout, making it entertaining for most of its 59 minutes. I probably don't need to mention that I would enjoy it even more with 2 tracks less, for no better reason then having an attention span of 50 minutes.

It's not the most original or revealing bit of metal this year but simply very good album for fans of technical progressive thrash metal. It is certainly recommended above their other albums. An excellent release in its niche.

UMUR "Omnivium" is the 3rd full-length studio album by German technical/progressive death metal act Obscura. The album was released in March 2011 by Relapse Records. "Omnivium" is probably one of the most hyped technical death metal releases this year. Obscura made quite the name for themselves with "Cosmogenesis (2009)" and therefore the expectations among fans of the technical/progressive part of the death metal genre have been very high for this release.

Obscura started out as a pretty standard death metal act on their debut album "Retribution (2006)". "Cosmogenesis" saw the band taking a technical and at times progressive approach to songwriting and playing. "Cosmogenesis" was generally very well received by critics and fans alike. With "Omnivium" it seems the band have found the right balance between death metal power/brutality, technical playing and progressive ideas. Think a mix of Morbid Angel, Necrophagist, Death and Cynic and you´re just about there.

The playing is technical to the extreme. Very fast precision drumming, challenging tempo- and time signature changes, fretless bass playing, lightning fast guitar riffing and melodic soloing are some of the elements on the album. The vocals are predominantly growling but there are "clean" vocoder vocal parts in the music too. The tracks are generally very complex in structure and fans of the genre should find themselves entertained for hours before cracking the code to some of these tracks.

All in all "Omnivium" is probably most technical/progressive metal fan´s wet dream come true. I have a few gripes with the album though. Obscura are very skilled musicians and composers, but they are hardly innovative. There´s nothing on this album that haven´t been done before by some of the band´s sources of inspiration. Obscura skillfully mix those influences and make their own music out of it, but they don´t invent the wheel. I guess I have a slight issue with that and also the fact that the production is a bit too polished and the growls are a bit tame and lack bite. But my issues aside, "Omnivium" is still a very high quality technical/progressive death metal album and it shows a positive development from "Cosmogenesis". A 4 star rating is deserved.

adg211288 Omnivium is the third album by German death metal band Obscura, released in 2011. The band plays death metal in its more technical and progressive form, but in a way that the aspects of brutality that a death metal band needs aren’t lost or left forgotten. In short Omnivium is an album that should appeal to both death metal fans and those of more technical metal genres such as prog.

It’s very clear right from the off that Obscura isn’t a band that is going to shy away from including more melodic sections in their otherwise extreme music, the album’s opening track, an excellent seven and a half minute piece called Septuagint, lets the listener know this right away as it starts with an acoustic intro. There are also many passages in the album where frontman Steffen Kummerer switches from his usual growl (which is top notch by the way) to some melodic cleans, which are, while not as strong as his growl, also very nice and used in the songs where they’ll fit best.

Another thing that is very clear right from the first track is that all musicians involved in the band are at the top of their game. As a band there is no weak link to be found, and with Omnivium we also get them at their very best as writers. There is not a bad track to be found on the album and as a whole it is easily one of the best death metal releases that I’ve ever heard. Personally speaking the whole death metal genre is not one that I actually connect with very often, but every now and then I do come across a band/album that has that something special that makes me sit up and pay attention. Obscura is one of those bands and Omnivium is one of those albums. I must also say that Omnivium impresses so much on first listen, that I do believe it’s also the fastest that I ever came to really love a death metal record.

Omnivium as a whole has left me rather speechless. There isn’t a single bad thing to say about it and every track is as good as the last. It’s an album where I really can’t pick favourites because I love every second of this beast. Everything from the musicianship down to the production job is pure class. The often very prominent bass work from Jeroen Paul Thesseling, which is done on six-string fretless basses only, also adds a nice touch to the album that works very well with the technical guitar work from Kummerer and fellow guitarist Christian Muenzner. In short Omnivium is an intense yet beautifully crafted journey and a true masterpiece of death metal music, and metal in general at that. What else can be said about it except to give it that ultimate seal of approval – a perfect score, and well deserved.

(Review originally written for Heavy Metal Haven)

Time Signature Velocity...

Genre: prog/tech death metal

Obscura blazed into the world's attention focus with their sophomore effort "Cosmogenesis" which offered technical and challenging death metal with nods of reference to the old masters in Cynic, Atheist, Death, Morbid Angel and the like.

"Omnivium" very much continues down the path blazed by "Cosmogenesis" with complex riffage, dissonant chords, jazzy complex fretless bass patterns and insanely fast blastbeats. While you can immediately hear that it is Obscura when the brutal riffage kicks in after the acoustic intro in the opening track "Septuagint" and it would not be incorrect to claim that there are Obscura signature elements that recur on this album, it would be incorrect to claim that there is no progression from "Cosmogenesis" to "Omnivium", and it strikes me as being very obvious that the band have developed their style.

There is more focus on melody on this album (without it being melodeath!), for instance, and there is more use of acoustic guitars on "Omnivium". Moreover, Obscure venture more into the universe of dissonance than they did on "Cosmogenesis", and this creates a very interesting tension, especially when accompanied by ultra fast blastbeats. I also detect less Death influences on this album than on "Cosmogenesis", but there are more Cynic-like riffs here in several tracks - which I think is a nice touch. There are also some black metal tendencies (but the more complex kind associated with Deathspell Omega), which were absent from the previous album, and among the many extreme metal vocal styles used on this album we find a harsher 90s black metal style aggressive type of vocals, which I actually find a nice addition to the universe of Obscura.

As mentioned, there are many blastbeats, and I think that, like on "Cosmogenesis", there are too many blastbeats on the album. Blastbeats can be ultra brutal, but where there are many of them, they tend to lose the brutality factor, and "Omnivium" suffers a bit from this. Other than that, the drumming, like the rest of the musicianship, is top notch and will definitely serve to raise the bar of technical finesse in the world of death metal.

Productionwise, the sound is very polished, but it has to be so, otherwise the many details would be drowned out. The bass is very audible in the mix, which is great (since it is, after all, one of the defining features of Obscura's music), but it is not dominant in relation to the other instruments.

"Omnivium" is an interesting and challenging listen which will cause alot of fappage among prog/tech death metal fans, but it might also turn off those who are not "trained" listeners of complex and progressive extreme metal.

When all is said and done, this is a prog/tech death metal masterpiece.

The Block Celestial Spheres

Obscura’s latest album is definitely the best death metal albums I’ve heard so far this year, and is also one of the top overall albums, too. Sometimes utterly brutal and other times softer, though I find it hard to classify any of this as soft, Obscura has reached their peak in both creativity and musicianship. Not only have they released a great album, but they’ve redefined technical death metal once again and, in my mind, reached to the point of other technical death metal greats such as Atheist and Cynic.

From the first listen of the album I enjoyed it, especially the great guitar work by both Christian Muenzner and Steffen Kummerer. The solos on this album are absolutely awesome and increase the enjoyment of listening to this album a lot. On songs such as “Aevum” the guitars set the tone and carry the melody perfectly, providing a nice, even feel that is hardly paralleled in today’s metal scene. Though mostly a guitar and drum driven album, Jeroen Paul Thesseling’s bass work is top notch and really drives the album. This is especially evident on tracks such as “Euclidean Elements” and “Septuagint” where his 6 string bass shows how diverse Obscura is, and how they don’t suffer from many of the genre clichés.

One thing that I wasn’t sold on from the beginning though was the drumming. Unlike bands such as Atheist, Death, and Cynic, Obscura’s drumming changes sound and texture throughout the album. At first I wasn’t sure I really like that, since it sounded kind of artificial, but after a while I began to see it really added to their overall sound. On the track “Septuagint” this is especially shown in the beginning when it is a nice acoustic section that has the normal drum sound, but it then transfers into a technical death metal melody in which the drums change and become hollower sounding, so to say. That may sound bad, but it offers up a great sound that is really enjoyable and fits right in. Also, the acoustic sections on this album are very good and help distance this album so many others. The vocals are also very good. Steffen Kummerer has a knack for growling and it is really depicts Obscura’s image.

The production is excellent, clean, and clear. It really helps the quality of an album when the production is good, and that is what we have here. Not only is it a great production, but a great album as well.

If you like technical death metal, just a little bit you will be blown away by this album. Not only is it a genre defining piece but it has great musicianship, wonderful production, and great creativity. This album is a must have for any metal fan and definitely one of the best releases of 2011. For this fantastic album, Obscura gets 4.5 stars.

J-Man Obscura left a permanent mark on the technical death metal scene with their 2009 album Cosmogenesis, and it certainly looks like they've done it yet again with Omnivium. Technical death metal has been a bit of a stagnant genre in recent years, but Obscura has assured me that it's far from dead. These guys just constantly push boundaries and kick tons of ass in the process! If you consider yourself a fan of technical/progressive death metal but can pass on many of the genre clichés, Omnivium is one of the most essential releases in recent memory. On this album you'll find innovation, breathtaking musicianship, and compositions that are impossible to ever forget. Any progressive/technical death metal fan can consider this album a "must-have" in my book - I have a feeling that we'll be looking back on Omnivium 20 years from now as a genre-defining album.

Obscura plays a style of progressive/technical death metal with clear influences from bands such as Atheist, Death, Cynic, and even touches of progressive melodeath like Opeth (there's substantial amounts of acoustic guitar on this album). Although this style of music has been done to death in recent years and has been watered down by metalcore influences, Obscura still has their own identity and never seems at all like a "clone band". Unlike many modern technical death metal CD's, Omnivium isn't all about never-ending scale acrobatics, and -core influences are kept to a minimum. This album manages to seamlessly mix unrelenting complexity with melody and memorability, and that in itself is worthy of accolades. One interesting note is the 6-string fretless bass from Jeroen Paul Thesseling, and that also gives Obscura their own identity. His playing style often reminds me of Steve DiGiorgio (Death, Sadus), which is obviously a good thing.

The production is yet another shining achievement of Omnivium. The sound is crystal clear, full, and extremely clean. This is a top-notch sound, and definitely among the best I've heard in modern extreme metal.

If you were convinced by the previous Obscura album, there's no doubt that you'll be blown away once again by Omnivium. This is yet another killer slab of metal from these German juggernauts; I'm sure that this will go down as a classic in the history books. These guys are at the top of the technical death metal world right now, and Omnivium has earned them an excellent 4.5 from this humble reviewer. If you like technical death metal, get this one NOW!