Review Summary: Though it is a solid album, it is essentially a Vader cover masked by overlooked adjustements
After their 2007 demo, a relatively small step into their musical career,
Obeisance Rising came along to crack the egg, and allow this band to peer into the world. It's hard to deny the recession that many metal artists of this century make, such as painstakingly copying legends of the past, and Hideous Divinity is certainly no exception. 2012 has shown us the good, the bad, and the ugly, and with the release of
Obeisance Rising, we're getting an entertaining look at a cross between all of the above. Between the band pulling together all of their influences from relatively average bands, then assorting through various songs and adding their own special and unique tweaks, you finally end up with an album that is neither ground-breaking, nor bad. Instead, you get yet another no-name brand of music that may be solid enough to make ends meet, but you'll really only ever turn this on if you find you're bored with everything else.
The album starts off with a short and eerie little introduction before slamming down with incredibly heavy guitars, and an over-accelerated drum line, and vocals that sound as if they had Peter Wiwczarek in the studio with them. Though the main and upfront parts of this album are obvious reenactments of another band's patented sound, if you look deep enough, it is possible to pull out little areas of uniqueness throughout the album. Though few and far between, a small example would be areas where the vocalist, who is otherwise monotonous in every way, will change his pitch here and there accordingly, and it can really make a difference in these 3-4 minute tracks. The guitars can seem relatively average, but Fabio Bartoletti doesn't fail to kick it up a notch every now and again. His most notable moments are in
Cerebral Code of Obeisance, and
Laughing at the Ephemeral Race. He also shows potential when he quickly swaps out heavy riffs for small solos. These small things save this album from being otherwise useless.
The really amazing thing about this band is their drummer, Maurizio Montagna, who not only keeps the brutality going from minute one of this album until the end, but can also be seen making some of these songs worth their while. The track
Enclosured has a good example right at the beginning of the track, in fact, this track contains all kinds of examples of the band marking their own territory. It would be difficult to decide what the best track here is, but if it were simpler, this track would definitely be a candidate. About the only fault I can find with the drummer is not so much his playing, but the production, and the sound he has on the album. Much unlike the guitars and the vocals, the drums (and bass alike) are far too technically produced. They really fall out of place when compared to the semi-raw nature of the guitars and the vocals, and that might throw some people off, especially when the incredibly rapid kick comes in to play in every track.
To conclude, this is a solid album in every aspect. Each member has an appropriate spot here, and they play out well when all is said and done. It's just that this has been done so many times, and for those that don't have the patience to search through an album and really get around to understanding it well, this isn't going to be a good album for you. It's not the most accessible death metal release this century, or at the very least, post-2005. It may take a couple times for it to grow on you. But even then there can only be so much positive inspection before you get to the point where you realize that no matter how hard you search, the ending result is that no matter how much you thought the band had an image to their name, they're really just copy-pasting another band's sound onto a disc.
