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Rating: Anyone who has no idea who Gorguts are can get an idea by reading the other reviews (also on this site) of “Considered Dead” and “The Erosion Of Sanity.”
Regarding “Obscura,” it can no longer be strictly labelled as Brutal Death metal because the influences of other genres are “so many and such” that they throw labels into the closet: released in 1998, five years after the previous work, it laid the foundation for the new path taken by many Brutal bands at the end of the '90s and still continued today. I can't help but compare it to the subsequent “... And Then You'll Beg” by Cryptopsy, which is undoubtedly a product of this CD, and which I will soon review. Listening to the first three songs was enough for me to realize I was facing an album completely outside of every stilema and convention: honestly, I wasn't very struck by the rhythms (even though they are complex and quite innovative), but by the absolutely inconceivable guitar sounds from the human mind. Absolutely limping and scratchy riffs are accompanied by extreme, precise, and never boring drumming, while the singer-guitarist gives another proof of being a talented instrumentalist as well as a good growler. His vocal style hasn't changed at all from the previous work and remains on tones that are never too low and not at all gurgling. Were it not for the particularly gloomy tones and the absence of Jazz-Fusion inserts, this record could be classified as Mathcore. But as mentioned above, the notes played (however disharmonious) produce very dark “melodies.” The guitarists use a distortion with a particularly metallic and rusty sound that makes the substance of the record much more disorienting and pounding: although it's strange that in a record of this genre it isn't the drums leading the game, undoubtedly in “Obscura” it plays a rather marginal role. Not the rhythms, but the sounds are used by Luc Lemay and his companions to stun the listener in a flood of reasoned noise: needless to specify what excessive technical skill is needed to perform pieces like the twelve contained in the album. In fact, the Gorguts had already demonstrated in the previous “The Erosion Of Sanity” a proficiency that places them in the Olympus of extreme metal, so I will simply say that in “Obscura” they have further improved.
But if my review ended here, I would overlook fundamental details: the vortex of madness created by the four is not just made of frenetic guitars and frantic rhythms: what is most surprising is the articulation of the pieces where fundamental parts have the voice and daring juxtapositions (such as the inclusion of a piece performed with the viola in “Earthly Love”). The work is chiseled, the notes are placed close to each other to create creaks and unpleasant sensations that dull the listener's senses. Listening is difficult and not very fluid, also due to a mixing process that is far from crystal clear. However, the work is not monolithic; each song has its own particularities and does not blend with the others: boredom is banned from “Obscura,” which, in return, causes a considerable sense of physical and emotional exhaustion once listening is complete. The emotions triggered by such a record are many, and very few are positive: the lyrics are criticizable for dwelling on the taste for oriental wisdom and for not coherently expressing the strength of the feelings triggered by the music.
An epic and exhausting album, highly recommended to those craving peculiar and unusual sounds, but highly discouraged for the faint-hearted or purists of the genre: "Obscura" can appeal only to lovers of hallucinatory and confused music, but despite the sound being anything but light, it’s by no means certain that a CD of this type will appeal to those seeking exclusively violent music. Excellent, laborious, and unprecedented.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Earthly Love (04:04)
Flesh the feeble flesh confines the pain and soul
Vault in which, the earthly way, i bear
Earth Love my denial
Tears as a gift upon my mirror
Bright...the pureness of the unperpetual
The meaningless heat of flesh, I ignore
Reflection of betrayal
Fear as a gift, a creeping splendour
Flows of ecstasies within the succubus
The carnal healings of the soul
Earthly form of illusion
Flesh, my desires a living radiance
Must of ecstasies the mankind's incubus
The carnal addictions of the soul
Concrete form of sorrow
Impure malignant indignation
In my dreams, earthly love seems so bright
I my nights, earthly love I deny
Earthly love...carnal bliss
Which I'll have inside of me until my end.
[repeat 1st verse]
Earthly love...carnal bliss
Which I'll have inside of me till my end.
03 The Carnal State (03:07)
Once my earthly pass
Over and stuck in the past
I will become one with the ground
Dust, I'll be
For those who've seen my earthly pass
Taking place in the past
Coldness will lead to emptiness
Free I'll be from this carnal state.
The stench of mediocrity soars
Once tangible vanish
The lucid pure calmness of ecstasy
The carnal state, my only grief
The carnal state
Entrenched in the logical
Carnal state
The epitome of a comfortless epoch
Transcend
Dreamless in this mind of flesh
Mind of flesh
The fragments of a worthless epoch
Collapse
The stench of mediocrity soars
Once tangible vanish
The lucid pure calmness of ecstasy
The carnal state, my only grief
04 Nostalgia (06:10)
Latest being drowned
In fictive degradation
Coming depression revolved
Around an Earth
Nostalgia excludes the whole
As spleen takes over me
Resound, the echoes of my threnodies
And then the fact of being
Has no longer meaning
The hymns of light
They'll sing once I'll be gone
Reverie appears cause
Existence collapse
Nostalgia
Sadness shall obnuilate
Sadness, feels, the desolated
Desperately lost within
Lament, pain and misery
The more lies burden lives,
The more I am dying
The realm of light
I'll reach once I'll...
Latest feeling drowned
In lucid contradiction
Coming relation revolved
Around a heart
Nostalgia excludes the whole
[repeat 3rd and 4th verses]
06 Clouded (09:32)
Sad version of abject life
Enlighment feeds my decay
Sombre proper to ecstasy
Bring this dark day of frenzy
Shame while I fly high
Incite tears to my eyes
Hopeless mind...Pain Life creates
Above the skies of sorrow, I'm...
Crawling..Crawling on the darkened shore
Seas of despair saturate my soul
Rising..Rising from this clouded land
Life of despair shall forsake my soul
Hopeless mind...Pain life creates
Above the skies of sorrow, I elevate
Shame while I fly high
Incite tears to my eyes
Fading..Fading from the mortal ground
Sad version of grievous soul
Shame while I fly high
Incite teras to my eyes
Hopeless mind...Pain it creates
Above the skies of sorrow, I elevate
07 Subtle Body (03:23)
Volatile incarnation in tangible
Ghostly shades aerate
In the air, penetrates
Transparent fleshless beings cast in tangible
Mortal eye horrified by this spectral light
Enhance, Enhance
Cloudy, obscure conception
Floating, Floating
Unspeakable perception
Volatile infiltration in visible
Beyond sight and demise
Shall transcend darkened minds
Existence, being transposed to invisible
Terms of life, once arrived, I will
Bring your spectral flight
Sweet silence
Crawling animation
Sweet serenity
Unearthly variation
Embrace, embrace
Futile fascination
The flight enhance
Increasing perversion
Volatile incarnation in tangible
Beyond sight and demise
Have trancend, Darkened minds
Transparent fleshless beings cast in tangible
Terms of life, now arrived,
Brought your spectral flight
08 Rapturous Grief (05:27)
Dead with pride
Hopelessness behind...I ascent
Feeble minds
Regret in their eyes...They repent
Inner horizon
I glorify my death in peaceful solitude
Obscure concept of blissful imagery
Rapturous Grief
AS my soul rises Transparency, I reach...
far from this world, I'll be
Lost within darkness
Timeless dormancy is
where now I shall dwell
Cast beyond mortals
The faceless ones, I meet
The faceless ones are cleansing me
Grotesque earthly love behind
I leave the sun behind
Splendid fluid transparency ashore
Within darkness, I dwell
The carnal state, I escape
Life is now a part of past extracted from me
The carnal state I forsake
Death is now a part that
Last longer than life and its misery
Mindless soul
Pure consciousness
My internal dream was my eternal fear
[repeat 1st verse]
11 Faceless Ones (03:50)
The granted land forsaken,
I cross the threshold of the faceless ones
Lost in the twilight, confinement in emptiness
The granted flesh abandoned
I shall reborn as a faceless one
Darkly, splendid world, confinement in rapture
Unbearable pain I share
My carnal past I deny
Timeless life They share
A rebirth through demise
Fearless to the grave
It brought me to a new level
Instead of crying the dead
I see further in the cyclone's eye
Lost in the twilight
Confinement in emptiness
The granted land forsaken
I cross the threshold of the faceless ones
Darkly, splendid world
Confinement in rapture
The granted flesh abandoned
I shall reborn as a faceless one
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Other reviews
By Gabrielegilli
Obscura represents the pinnacle of Gorguts, the mechanically monumental fresco of a genius mind called Luc Lemay.
After an hour and two minutes of listening, one is left in a 'Sweet Silence,' a disturbing snapshot of our twisted psyche.
