From This Day Forward

Not very known, not very listened in terms of progressive thrash/death from Canada immediately brings to mind one band that is particularly worth mentioning out - Obliveon! Yes, my dears, these are some of those about whom little is said in the context of a perfectly balanced cosmos in music (or music in cosmos), and who found their due applause only years later, and among a very small group. After all, what would Vektor be without Voivod and Obliveon? In any case, the beginnings of these second Canadian visionaries date back to 1987, under the correctly spelled name Oblivion, and after a series of demos and a change of name to Obliveon, their proper debut took place in 1990. That's when "From This Day Forward" was released - extremely intriguing and quite ahead of its time material.

The whole project is a very progressive and surprisingly professional look at extreme music, which was just before the Death, Atheist and Cynic opuses. And this is important because Obliveon, like Coroner, Watchtower or Sadus, was at the highest technical level before this type of trend grew on a slightly wider scale. And although I mentioned bands from very different parts of the globe, my point is that "From This Day Forward" perfectly combines thrash/death aggression and rawness with cosmic departures, complexity and compositional richness. Basically, the debut of these Canadians contains only seven songs, although their multi-threadedness and the number of hidden nuances mean that such material can be discovered for years and still surprises with something. Check out for example "It Should Have Stayed Unreal", "Fiction Of Veracity", the title track or "Droïdomized" and this will sufficiently reveal how extraordinary and unique this music is - full of twisted riffs, cosmic atmosphere, with huge dose of dynamics, deliciously extended bass, masterful solos, great vocals and death's feistiness. And the best thing is that in the context of such an extensive album, there is no over-editing or over-intellectualization of the material. What's more, Obliveon's debut is a perfect bridge between thoughtful progression and spontaneity.

"From This Day Forward" is therefore a must-have in the context of progressive and technical death/thrash metal and at the same time an album of the highest, world-class level. Obliveon's debut perfectly combines complex topics with those that are direct and focused on the aggressiveness. The only surprising thing in this situation is the album's status as having been (unfairly) forgotten or omitted. After all, there should be much more talk about masterpieces such as "From This Day Forward".

Originally on A bit of subjectivism...in metal

At the complete opposite end of the progressive metal spectrum to bands like Cynic lies Canada’s Obliveon. Emerging from a thrash tradition that co-opted progressive tendencies along the way but remained very much true to the excitable, punky roots of extreme metal, their debut album fits well in a timeline that incorporates Voivod, DBC, and Coroner. Despite the undeniable musicianship of these bands, they retained a brashness and DIY aesthetic which tempered their more overt flirtations with prog. Obliveon’s ‘From this Day Forward’ (1990) should be considered a watermark of progressive metal articulated in the death/thrash vernacular.

But if mid 80s Voivod and Coroner were offering an audial assault of dense, riff packed noise, Obliveon opted to slow the average tempo down a little, allowing the off kilter riffs some space to breathe, and creating an emptiness behind the music that imbued it with a spacey atmosphere, one that all the strained virtuosity of a Vektor have been unable to replicate. There are faster passages of blunt thrash riffing scattered throughout this album, but they serve as transition riffs between unpredictable development sections and disorientating high end guitar leads that jump out of the music to redefine our place within the narrative. This conflict between understated progressive thrash set to mid-paced, swaggering rhythms and the urgency of traditional atonal thrash serves to pinpoint ‘From this Day Forward’ as a transitional album within metal in every sense of the word.

We see the old servicing the new, just as we see the new raising the aspirations of the old. This delicate balance is perfectly poised throughout this album. Everything is rendered with a faint touch of reverb that gives the music a subtly chasmic atmosphere without the need for any keyboards or excessive guitar effects. Drums are heavy but not too dominant. The powerful snare and thundering double-bass are restrained enough to give clarity to the tight and creative performance. Stéphane Picard’s snarled vocals have just a touch of echo to them, offering the album narration as if from a vast hanger. So creative and numerous are the riffs and solos that the guitars need little to enhance their tone.

They jump from meaty thrash riffs to delicately picked high end staccato leads that are almost haunting in their tantalising relationship with melodic development. At moments of heightened tension the drums will match their rhythmic emphasis, raising the overall intensity of the music, before breaking away into a simple one/two punk beat as the narrative develops. The lead guitars will sometimes trade blows with the bass, as the latter takes up the refrain introduced by the former, gradually building an unfolding concoction of spatial unknowns.

It should be noted that none of this is overtly technical by the standards of progressive music. The riffs take on unexpected shapes and forms as they develop, but owing to the relatively suppressed tempos, there is a deliberation and patience to the way these tracks unfold that grants it a tension and unease lacking in denser displays of musicality. Instrumental breaks of clean guitars also serve to compliment the ever-present empty space that sits behind every moment of this album, offering idiosyncratic harmonies to lead into blunted power chord riffs. It’s an effect that is hard to pin down, seeing as silence lurks behind all musical endeavour. But on ‘From this Day Forward’, the emptiness that sits behind the modest layers of reverb present on instrument invokes a void at the heart of this album, a non-existence that we are acutely aware of between each pause, but can never quite grasp as the music marches ever onwards.

'From this Day Forward' is blue collar prog in every sense of the word. The simple fact is that – for all their tension, poise, and unbridled creativity – Obliveon still behave like a metal band. They build riffs into one another, which in turn connect up to form a narrative, with guitar leads and solos heightening the tension and resolve in their own sui generis framework. The progressive format is incidental to this goal; a means to an end. But for progressive metal that sits at the borders of death and thrash, few compete with this album.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

Obliveon are a natural product of the constantly evolving, perennially forward-thinking Canadian metal scene; the scene that spawned Voivod for a start in the mid-80’s. And then it all steam-rolled from there with Savage Steel and DBC abandoning their immediate beginnings to jump on the more serious wagon, alongside Annihilator, Beyond and the band under scrutiny here who managed to bring their visions above ground by the end of the decade. To add a few unheralded showings in the face of Dyoxen and Disciples of Power, and the picture came to being almost complete. Obliveon were the most aggressive performers from this group boldly venturing into proto-death with a nice technical touch as evident from the impressive “Whimsical Uproar” demo.

The band’s debut was an answer to the works of Annihilator (“Alice in Hell”; or was it “….in Heaven”?) and Disciples of Power (Powertrap”) who were the only acts from the mentioned group that remained afloat, ready to fight with whatever the grunge/groovy/aggro hordes would throw at them (well, not exactly, Mr. Waters) in the years to come. Of those three opuses, the one reviewed here is the best, a great flagship of the thinning classic metal movement from Canada in the early-90’s. However, it remained to be seen which direction the guys were going to swing having in mind their deathy predilections. It has to be the title-track to answer this question which starts this saga with a suggestive bassy intro before a myriad of intricate riffs pours over the listener, the latter sitting in bewilderment, savouring the stylish cannonade which never speeds up, but adds a layer after layer of perplexing serpentine rhythms which creep remorselessly with a unique surreal, atonal aura surrounding them, and with a portion of twisted melodies springing out of nowhere in the second half. It smells like thrash on this opening ceremony, with only the harsh semi-declamatory vocals firmly belonging to the death metal side. “Fiction of Veracity” has another melodic surprise in stall for a start, but more intense thrashing is provided right after with the characteristic weird melodies again emerging from the netherworld to mesmerize the fandom who will have to experience nearly 9-min of this progressive saga which twists and turns into many directions as the mid-section is particularly stupendous bordering on operatic virtuosity.

“Drondomized” sounds like something from out of space title-wise, or at least prophetic regarding the invasion of the drones that we’re experiencing nowadays; but in the music department we have a relatively linear, moderately speedy shredder with more dramatic accumulations here and there, the middle part again preserved for the most challenging riff-pattern. “Imminent Regenerator” bedazzles from the get-go with a super-technical fast-paced introduction the band thrashing with consummate precision and this elusive melodic flair also characteristic of the Germans Despair (“Decay of Humanity”, in particular); a highly stylized rifforama with a few classical variations and a strong headbanging motif. “It Should Have Stayed Unreal” produces the next in line quiet section as an appetizer before the guys start piling up clever time-signatures and mazey rhythmic puzzles all the way to the pacifying balladic finale. The instrumental “Access to the Acropolis” will give you access to a nice introductory bassism which in its turn transforms into a lead-driven doomy stroke; the transformational cycle continues with a speedy crescendo with classical overtones again which are also carried by the superb melodic lead sections. “Chronocraze” is the ultimate technicaller taking it easy first with stomping more orthodox riffage, but complicates the environment with more puzzling decisions later with a somewhat symphonic structure, with fast appreggio sweeps fighting for domination against the officiant mid-paced stomps.

The warm classical-prone way of execution makes this album an entirely different beast, having not much to do with the over-the-top display of guitar dexterity of Jeff Waters, or the hyper-active intricate histrionics of Disciples of Power. Again, it would have felt much more at home on the other side of The Atlantic in the company of the first two Despair efforts, Sieges Even’s “Life Cycle”, and the Dutch Sacrosanct’s two opuses. It was too advanced for the Canadian metal arena at the time, but served just great as the more sophisticated, less aggressive analogue to the hyper-active, very technical death/thrash mixtures of their US peers Atheist, Nocturnus, Vacant Grave, Hexx and Revenant.

It turned out that Annihilator wouldn’t be much of a competition for Obliveon after Waters messed it up with the tepid “Set the World on Fire”; but the other candidates, Disciples of Power, grew into a formidable rival with their very next opus “Ominous Prophecy”, a potent slab of technical thrash/death (more death than thrash actually) with engaging complex song-structures. Obliveon’s answer to this challenge was more than distinguished, though; “Nemesis” was another meisterwerk of consummate technical/progressive thrash on the verge of death at times. The few modern elements that had found their niche on that album became the guiding light on “Cybervoid” two years later, a modern thrasher with echoes of Meshuggah, the industrial metal movement (think Skrew, above all) and same year’s Voivod’s “Negatron”. Not bad at all by 90’s standards, it delineated the band from the classic metal trajectory, but brought them close to the conquest of cyberspace which ultimately failed after the release of “Carnivore Mothermouth” in 1999, a heavily industrialized, banal affair which saw one of the most autocratic formations ever degenerating to third-tier mechanical chuggers.

The new millennium had no tolerance for vestiges of the aggro/groovy/industrial miasma that had been wrapped around the previous decade, and Obliveon were not among the chosen ones to launch the old school resurrection wave. After a best of compilation released in 2002 the band put an end to their career; career that left an indelible trace on the Canadian metal field, and one that has been given a second chance in 2014 with the band coming back together. Cyberspace was conquered the first time around; where to next… anywhere but not on the road to oblivion.

“From this Day Forward” is Obliveon’s first effort and from what I’ve heard, their best. It signifies what technical old school thrash should sound like. It’s got the speed, the technicality, and the aggression that all thrash should have.

The production is amazing. All the instruments are audible. The drums are loud and powerful, the guitars are heavy, the bass is present in the mix but too overly loud, and the vocals go over top perfectly. I can’t really think of one flaw in the production. I’m not sure where they recorded this but whoever did definitely knew what they were doing.

The music on this album is very technical. Now, I don’t mean technical as in weird time signatures and very off rhythm riffs, I mean how challenging the riffs sound to play. There are plenty of bass standouts which further show how good everyone in this band actually is. Yes, this album has a lot of the standard thrash beats, but this drummer adds some more to the music with crazy fills and cymbal work similar to Sean Reinert on Death’s “Human” album. Also, another aspect of this album that makes it more interesting is the almost atmospheric intros and breaks. A good example of this is, “From this Day Forward” and “Across to the Acropolis”.

The only negative thing I have to say about this album is the song lengths. I think they could’ve split some songs in two or shortened them, but it’s not a big enough flaw to do any damage.

If you haven’t heard this album, you’re missing out on a true old school thrash album. Probably one of more technical thrash metal out there and if you are a fan of that sort of thing, definitely check this out.

Best tracks – “Droidomized”, “From this Day Forward”, and “Across to the Acropolis”