Can you believe it's already been 9 years?

[Zealotry]

9 years... and yet the impact this album has made on its genre remains minimal, compared to that made by, say, Altars of Madness in the first few years following its release. And this, despite the fact that the level of deviation and innovation in the musical approach between Obscura and its closest 'competitor' dwarfed that of every other landmark metal album.

So what gives? Has the extreme metal world become too set in its ways with the passage of time for there to be as much of a difference made by an album released in 1998 as one released in 1989, even in 2007, no matter how much more revolutionary the latter album is? Are the musicians themselves to blame for their complacency? Are the labels to blame for the fear of endangering their bottom line? Are we, the consumers to blame for having no sense of adventure?

I posed a similar question to members of Voivod a while back, and they pointed primarily to the labels. But I'm not sure if that tells the whole story.

 

[Jim LotFP]

So what gives? Has the extreme metal world become too set in its ways with the passage of time for there to be as much of a difference made by an album released in 1998 as one released in 1989, even in 2007, no matter how much more revolutionary the latter album is? Are the musicians themselves to blame for their complacency? Are the labels to blame for the fear of endangering their bottom line? Are we, the consumers to blame for having no sense of adventure?

The fact that 1998 was a comparable dead time so seeing widespread acclaim for anything in this period is going to be rare... and seeing acclaim for an album where "difficult to listen to" is one of its defining stylistic features is going to be rare from any era.

 

[Zealotry]

But wouldn't it being 1998 make the album even more of a landmark?

Basically, I'm wondering why albums with a heavy Gorguts influence remain pretty much a novelty, while it's pretty much expected that a death metal album is influenced by Morbid Angel.

 

[Cheiron]

Simple answer: Because more people like Morbid Angel than Gorguts.

Complex answer: Gorguts is Gorguts is Gorguts, why repeat? How far can one go in that area? Necrophagist is grogutsy sure. But that style is so... I don't know. Limiting imo. Doesn't denegrate it. But I think its limiting.

 

[Zealotry]

But the thing is, you don't have to sound like Gorguts to be influenced by Gorguts. Unlike Morbid Angel, who only innovated in the sense that they added a new dimension of aggressive riffing and a distinct vocal style to death metal [if even that, and it's arguable], Gorguts, with this one album, really expanded the very lexicon of the genre's musical language to several times its previous size. The types of chord shapes, progressions and harmonics used on that album really hadn't appeared anywhere else prior to it within the metal genre.
So really, to show Gorguts influence, a band doesn't have to go whole-hog and be a carbon copy. Not even remotely so. All you have to do is pull a handful of the terms that Obscura added to the genre's lexicon and feature them prominently in your music, and people familiar with that record will know immediately that you have a Gorguts influence. And at this point in time - 9 years following the release of Obscura - this should be a common occurrence, and not just a novelty as it is now.

 

[Scourge of God]

Obscura is a brilliant album, but it suffers historically from being released after the general collapse of death metal as a creative entity.

Besides, it's not nearly as big an evolutionary leap as you imply. Bands like Demilich and Wicked Innocence produced brilliant albums in roughly similar styles (or at least with similar brands of experimentation), and Deicide's Legion anticipated much of Obscura's stronger elements half a dozen years before.

 

[Scourge of God]

But wouldn't it being 1998 make the album even more of a landmark?

Basically, I'm wondering why albums with a heavy Gorguts influence remain pretty much a novelty, while it's pretty much expected that a death metal album is influenced by Morbid Angel.

Bands that define the central evolutionary line of a genre are always going to be more influential than bands on the periphery.

 

[Zealotry]

Nespithe used atonal melodies, yes, but Demilich were innovative in their note progressions, not the chords they used.

And aside from that, Nespithe didn't really receive any real attention until 5-6 years after its release, while Obscura had the benefit of instant exposure via the internet.

 

[Zealotry]

Bands that define the central evolutionary line of a genre are always going to be more influential than bands on the periphery.

But who decides on the central evolutionary line and the periphery? I could make the argument, for instance, that Obscura really did represent the next step in the evolution of extreme metal because it was so advanced and so far removed from the conventions of heavy metal. Why should it be confined to the periphery? It's not a 'gimmick' album. It's not the type of record where a band is simply adding bells and whistles like new instrumentation and vocal styles simply to differentiate itself superficially. And it wasn't as if it was merely a one-off record for Gorguts, where they delved into building a record around an entirely new musical lexicon just to go back to the beaten path on the next record. They continued with the same type of sound on From Wisdom To Hate, and now with Negativa. Confining it to the periphery is a sin in my book.
The same mistake was made with Voivod 20 years ago, when they really changed the whole dynamic of thrash with Dimension Hatröss. But the typical thrash sound was still popular at the time, so Voivod's experimental phase did end up being considered a novelty because of that. I think that the timing of Obscura's release should've worked to its advantage in terms of making a bigger impact on extreme metal because it was such a dry period in the genre creatively and commercially. And yet we're still seeing a hundred Morbid Angel and Suffocation clones for every one band that takes a even page from Gorguts' playbook.

 

[Scourge of God]

The point is that Obscura is nowhere near to being the outlier that you're treating it as. And, let's be honest with ourselves, while it was well received critically, it was not necessarily all that well-received by death metal fans.

 

[Scourge of God]

But who decides on the central evolutionary line and the periphery?

Ah, shouldn't it be obvious by examining the actual historical arc of the genre, and, you know, seeing what most bands were actually doing? This isn't rocket science.

[quoteI could make the argument, for instance, that Obscura really did represent the next step in the evolution of extreme metal because it was so advanced and so far removed from the conventions of heavy metal.[/quote]

You could make the argument, but you couldn't really defend it on the evidence. An honest reading of the actual history of death metal would put it in the evolutionary sideshow of progressive death metal with Atheist, Demilich, Disaffected, Legion and other albums of a similar ilk.

Why should it be confined to the periphery?

You're making this into an almost moral issue. It isn't. They're not less significant for being on the fringe, they're just not part of the mainstream of the genre. It's not a comment on the quality of the album or even its importance, just an observation about where they stand in relationship to the rest of the genre.

 

[Zealotry]

Wait, so two bands [one of which really didn't use the same approach, and the other I'm not familiar enough to comment on] supposedly being similarly avantgarde somehow diminishes the innovation presented by Obscura? I don't buy it.

And also, I'm not sure how effective a gauge of an album's potential for redefining the genre fan response is. There are plenty of examples where the initial fan reception to a piece of work was mixed at best, yet over time it really became a staple of its genre. In the medium of film, for instance... Eraserhead and Night of the Living Dead were met with little fanfare, but have since become iconic because the cult following that they initially attracted grew exponentially with time and included a bevy of aspiring filmmakers.
An album like Obscura should've had the same kind of following, hitting more of a nerve with musicians, before really gaining general popularity. But that doesn't appear to have been the case. Musicians seem to respect the album and admire it, but most haven't really dared to even give it lipservice in their own works. And I'm really not sure why that is.

 

[Scourge of God]

Wait, so two bands [one of which really didn't use the same approach, and the other I'm not familiar enough to comment on] supposedly being similarly avantgarde somehow diminishes the innovation presented by Obscura? I don't buy it.

No one is diminishing anything, but your insistence that Obscura is somehow totally unprecedented in the death metal history is simply false. It's a record that is brilliant on its actual merits without needing you to gin up some bullshit mythos to surround it. The fact remains that there are definite antecedents (Legion being the most obvious, despite your tendency to ignore it), but this in no way detracts from what Gorguts accomplished with Obscura.

And also, I'm not sure how effective a gauge of an album's potential for redefining the genre fan response is.

It's pretty damn significant in any arena where the distinction between performers and audience is as nebulous as it is in metal. The filmgoer of today may be the director of hit films 15 years from now, but there's a damn good chance that the concert attendee of today may very well be recording their debut in less than 20 hours. Result: there's a lot more direct continuity of influence, and less time for reflection and re-evaluation.

 

[BenMech]

Obscura is a fine album. Gorguts have suffered since by 2 measures:

1) label distribution (Umm, Olympic Recordings got vaccuumed into Century Media and lost)
2) Steve McDonald's suicide post-FW2H

the sheer absence of ANY information about Lemay and Hurdle until Negativa showed up explains the lack of hype about the beauty and skill within Obscura or FW2H.

 

[DBB]

Simple answer: Because more people like Morbid Angel than Gorguts.

That may very well be the case, but I think there usually is more to it than that. I am absolutely unfamilar with this album myself, but felt like throwing out the speculation that the band being from Canada may have something to do with it.

I don't know...once you get beyond Voivod, there are a lot of bands that should have been more remarked upon that are given the short shrift. The Northern triumvirate of Sacrifice/Razor/Exciter could be argued to be better than their German counterparts, but you will see many many more bands taking Kreator/Sodom/Destruction as points of influence and inspiration. DBC self-titled album is just one of the oddest crossover album's ever made and Universe is a conceptual masterpiece--but neither of these are referenced very often. Annihilator has been so ignored over the years even though they were there from the very beginning (Waters' ego has something to do with this as well).

A small market that is marginalized at times that is hard to break out of and often ignored south of the border. Although there are substantial differences and the dynamics are not the same, Canada kind of occupies a similar position as Australia in the English-speaking metal world.

 

[Scourge of God]

That won't wash: the Montreal death metal scene is hardly an afterthought. It's certainly been the most widely written about and followed local scene since the late 90s.

 

[Jim LotFP]

That won't wash: the Montreal death metal scene is hardly an afterthought. It's certainly been the most widely written about and followed local scene since the late 90s.

I don't know about that, but it's certainly a noted (French-speaking!) locale.

 

[Scourge of God]

I don't know about that, but it's certainly a noted (French-speaking!) locale.

Well, I do know about that, and no other contemporary death metal scene comes close to drawing the same kind of ink that Montreal has since '97 or so.

 

[DBB]

no other contemporary death metal scene comes close to drawing the same kind of ink that Montreal has since '97 or so.

Gothenburg?



I really can't argue at length about my trial balloon concerning Canada, though. I was just throwing it out there to be batted around.

 

[Scourge of God]

Gothenburg?

The key phrase in all of this is "death metal." They've got no clue what that is in Göteborg.