Obscura – Akróasis (2016)

Brilliantly returning with eight highly intricate tracks, today we have Obscura and their latest acrobatic effort “Akróasis”. Featuring completely new line-up since last release, Steffen Kummerer manages to again gather a stellar group of musicians and delivers another Obscura-quality release. If you like Technical/Progressive Death Metal, we highly doubt that there will be a better album in 2016.

Opening with the brilliant “Sermon of the Seven Suns”, we instantly notice that the band’s trademark sound is intact and yet it feels slightly evolved with cleaner and melodic passages. The playful back-and-forth between instruments is insanely well crafted making songs like the opener and the heavier “The Monoist” (among others) sound amazingly elaborate and tricky. The vocal effects of songs like “Ten Sepiroth” give the band a certain Cynic edge. Additionally this track features some killer bass guitar sections.

The band’s signature pummeling aggression is quite evident on pieces like “Ode to the Sun” and the hellish “Fractal Dimension”. Both songs feature a massive drum track and some crushing guitar leads that will keep you headbanging for hours. The band’s biggest proggy side comes out in the brilliant “Perpetual Infinity”, which offers us an interesting Death/Cynic/Obscura musical combination that will surely please all fans of the genre.

Closing with the ambitious 15-minute “Weltseele”, the band uses lush string arrangements and great tempo changes to keep the listener at the edge of their seats. With bassist Linus Klausenitzer writing half the songs and Steffen the other half, we get a very diverse set of tracks that come together as a very cohesive and yet evolved signature Osbcura release. If you liked any of the older albums, this one will feel similar, but a bit cleaner and more refined. As one of the first 2016 that are a must-buy release, “Akróasis” will entertain you for hours on end.

Label: Relapse Records

Release: February 5th, 2016

Genre: Progressive/Technical Death Metal

Country: Germany