Obscura

At the time, nothing else inside death metal put this many unfamiliar sounds in a row. The harmonies between guitar and bass are violently discordant, the lead lines are full of metallic squeals and noises that sound like foreign objects, and the title track keeps returning to a plainly atonal melody played by tapping. The drums switch tempo and metre in spasms. At the centre of it was the guitarist Steeve Hurdle. The dissonance and experiment he brought, which had no precedent, are what make this the most complex and technical record in its genre. Luc Lemay has called it the album that defined their sound. The words turn to spiritual and existential subjects, another step away from where the band had been. William York of AllMusic wrote that beneath the apparent chaos there is a logic and a structure that shows itself on repeated listening. The album influenced Ulcerate, Spawn of Possession and Brain Drill, and the German band Obscura took their name from it. Century Media reissued it in 2015. The running order here is the original's as printed.