As a stop gap between albums, Obituary and Candlelight have given us this tasty little 4 track EP; two new tracks (“Forces Realign” and “Left to Die””), a recording of the posthumous debut album’s title track, “Slowly We Rot” and a cover of Celtic Frost’s “Dethroned Emperor”. There’s also video for “Evil Ways” from the band most recent opus, Xecutioner’s Return.
The two new tracks take off where Xecutioner’s Return left off; a murky, menacing, but a polished and groovy return to form -with “Forces Realign” delivering a simple, classically paced romp with a main riff that could have come from Slowly We Rot and “Left to Die” being a 6-minute dirge of loping, controlled twisted death metal replete with John Tardy’s back to form vocals and Ralph Santolla’s distinguishing solo work.
The cover of “Dethroned Emperor”, as with their cover of Circle of the Tyrants, fits in perfectly with Obituary’s sound and highlights how big of an influence Celtic Frost were on Obituary’s overall sound. The reworking of “Slowly We Rot” is perfectly done, revisiting the classic song with just a hint of modern polish to give a great, if not legendary song a new sheen. I’m sure Obituary fans have already seen the video for the short but groovy “Evil Ways”, but its your typical low fare death metal video just set in a hole in the wall bar as opposed to an abandoned warehouse with 35 strobe lights.
Hardly a must have purchase and 4 tracks and a video might not be worth the price for some, but if you absolutely need to hear two new Obituary songs, Left To Die is you only option right now.
nice review, but this is not worth the money. The production blows, the new songs really aren’t nothing to write home about, the original recording of Slowly We Rot is much better, a Celtic Frost cover(how original for Obituary), and the track listing is even wrong. This is really just a waste, too bad..
on Oct 22nd, 2008 at 11:16Red is right this is just a complete waste of money. actually anything by Obituary is a complete waste of money. band blows always did. just pure boring death metal.
on Oct 22nd, 2008 at 16:19This is really only going to appeal to Obituary fans. I like most of Obituary’s stuff and was pretty satisfied with this release. Could have been better, but it’s only an mCD so I wasn’t expecting much. Good for what it is.
on Oct 27th, 2008 at 16:14