Album Review: Obvurt - Triumph Beyond Adversity
Reviewed by Liam Barlow
I had the privilege of writing my first The Razor's Edge album review for Canadian technical death metal outfit, Obvurt, and the release of their debut feature length; 'Triumph Beyond Adversity' - which drops Friday courtesy of Unique Leader Records.
I’ll be honest I hadn’t come across the trio before, but on doing some research and hearing their already released material (which involved some Facebook stalking), I was sold on this being the album to be my maiden voyage back into writing, after a long spell out.
Before I started listening through the album, I found out that the founder of the band, Philippe Drouin, was injured in a car accident in 2016 and had to reteach himself to play guitar left-handed over the course of three years, just left me even more intrigued about what I was about to delve into.
Triumph Beyond Adversity begins with a track fittingly named 'The Beginning' but doesn’t give anything away in what the rest of the album is going to be like, a steady atmospheric voice over track before kicking in to a no holds barred main first track 'Second Chance', it boasts a guttural introduction, mood setting guitar before hitting into the main riff. As the track continues the technical guitar work is accompanied by some face quenching double bass.
Track three 'Invisible Enemy' carries on the mood of this album, and I am very much sold on this band already, the technical guitar work advances even more with some great solo work and sweeping, and before you know it 'Halfway from Theory' kicks in, and seriously, you need to listen to this band LOUD! It’s the only way to embrace everything going on, I must keep reminding myself that this guy re-taught himself guitar and this isn’t his native playing style. Some big chugging as this song progresses, vocals are quite scarce in this one, with the instrumental taking point and vocals coming in to accent it.
'Renverser L'adversité' begins and the sweeping guitar is back and is with us from word go, before bouncing us back again to that technically heavy riff, the way these guys compose themselves and with everything going on I see a lot of the work of other incredible three pieces such as Dying Fetus in it... that’s no small comparison from me. We head into 'One Last Thing' and there is no denying this album is heavy, as we move more into this track, the sweeping of the guitar blends into tapping and I’m just continued to be mesmerised by the technicality of this band.
'Life And Death' begins a bit slower than the rest and it is quite welcomed break, it offers a sense of variation to the rest of the album, to now build into the final two tracks and conclude this release. We're soon back up to speed and on par with the rest of the album as the song builds into another atmospheric monster.
We finish on an aggressively riff heavy song in 'Versus' which might be my favourite starting (and song) of the whole album, going back strongly to the Dying Fetus vibes on this, lots of pit action expected when they play this live with the recurring hard hitting riff.
All in all, the album flies past in an intense blend of technical and heavy riffs with solos, punching drums and fills, accompanied by guttural vocals