Review: Obsidious – Iconic

Style: Tech Death, Prog Death, Prog Metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Obscura, Devin Townsend, Persefone
Review by: Andy
Country: international
Release date: 28 October, 2022

Obscura definition: 

1. adj) shadowy, dark

2. n) a band who needs no introduction for technical death metal fans

I have rocked my Cosmogenesis sweatshirt nearly every single day for four years because I believe it features the best album cover of the tech death titans, yet Diluvium is the champion of my heart, a godly technical and progressive masterclass of instrumental performance and songwriting. It’s an unconventional choice for a first tech death album, but Diluvium wrapped itself around my heart with its noodly tentacles, and I remember awaiting release day to hear Diluvium before I remember doing the same for any other album. That lineup–Sebastian Lanser on drums, Linus Klausenitzer on bass, Rafael Trujillo on guitar, and of course Steffen Kummerer on vocals and guitar–still years later is one of the most intensely talented lineups the world has ever heard in one band, up there with the likes of Dream Theater and Between the Buried and Me for pure instrumental potential. But the three besides Steffen subsequently left Obscura to found Obsidious; hence, my introduction to Obscura (who I claimed needed no introduction) serves as a segue into the band that has the most pressure on them of any debut album I have ever anticipated–Iconic.  

The Diluvium boys have the instrumental and songwriting pedigree to do whatever they please, and they choose to continue in the general sonic direction as Diluvium but up the progressiveness like Alkaloid. The most notable stylistic departure from the members’ past exploits is the enlistment of Spain’s Javi Perera on vocal duties who fractures the tech death paradigm, injecting soaring cleans into choruses. Beyond just his fantastic clean singing, occasional falsettos, and belting, he spews forth roars, shrieks, and those clean/harsh mixed singing vocals, too; in essence, Obsidious is an Obscura lineup with a singer as technically proficient as the rest of the band. I could write about just his singing on the album far past my word limit, but we all know you’ve already read my score at the bottom and seen it isn’t a perfect ten, so something holds the thing back from being flat out better than Diluvium despite being a perfect expansion of the sound on paper. 

Admittedly, the album is a bit front-loaded; the first three tracks are the best three tracks. “Under Black Skies” storms forward with a tricky synth line that Rafael Trujillo impossibly follows on the guitar. Underneath the technical chaos are the sweet fretless bass licks of Linus and orchestrations also by Trujillo that all but confirm to my ears he is a student of Morean (Alkaloid, Dark Fortress). After a huge chorus, the band effortlessly transitions into an insane syncopated breakdown, which of course is followed by a Trujillo solo that would be right at home on Diluvium with Lanser’s absurd “anti-groove” blasts underneath. These descriptions suffer because I simply don’t have the technical music vocabulary to convey how implausibly amazing the performances are. After “Under Black Skies,” the band goes hard right into “Sense of Lust,” a brutally punishing track that will leave you begging for more. My peer Zach said in his Ashenspire review something about that album not being your gym soundtrack… This song is all you need for that new PR. It’s heavier than anything Obscura has ever released, and the final breakdown should make most deathcore bands besides Black Tongue blush–as the lyrics will do to decent people. Now of course I claimed the album is front-loaded, and these tracks are some of the clear highlights as others like “Delusion” and “Devotion” contain less distinguished identities, but the playing on those still boggles the mind. The weakest track for the second review in a row of mine is the closer, however, and “Lake of the Afterlife” is still a goodly bout of fun and shredding, but being denied something as epically finalistic as “An Epilogue to Infinity” is a shame. 

As mentioned, the playing is everything I could expect from the Diluvium boys; however, the mixing suffers a little with Linus’ bass pushed down and out of the mix during many parts. Thankfully he pops up for the occasional sick lead, but otherwise a bassist this glorious ought to get the Equipoise/Beyond Creation treatment: front and center. Besides that, the mixing is the hyper perfectionist clean you’d expect from a modern prog/tech band, but it’s still warm and not completely sterile–a good thing many smaller tech bands fail to avoid. When Iconic goes full-out technical like the noodly sweeps of “Iconic,” I’m a very happy camper, but I’m let down a tad by the chugs even if the off-kilter rhythmic complexities make up for that slightly, but in the end, the chugging sections with just harsh vocals are a significant step below the wonderfully rich shredding in the rest. Why can’t all of “Bound by Fire” or “I Am” comprise of the progressive wankery that the songs’ best moments have?

All in all, Obsidious do not disappoint even with the herculean task of having expectations of Diluvium 2.0 placed on them. They lift those expectations like Atlas balancing the Earth on his back. Every complaint I have about Iconic is a quibble, and time will prove my score too conservative I’m sure. Javi Perera has seriously impressed me with his style-spanning vocal acrobatics, even breaking down a clean-singing barrier I thought would take a couple more years to see fully dismantled, but that just serves to make the album progressive beyond normal metal connotations. Obsidious had the most pressure I’ve placed on any debut album ever: They paid it forward with one of the best debuts in recent memory. 

Recommended tracks: Under Black Skies, Sense of Lust, Iconic
You may also like: Stortregn, Alkaloid, Freedom of Fear, Eternity’s End, Hannes Grossmann
Final verdict: 9/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Season of Mist – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook

Obsidious is:
– Linus Klausenitzer (bass)
– Sebastian Lanser (drums)
– Rafael Trujillo (guitars, arrangement)
– Javi Perera (vocals, samples, lyrics)