Review Summary: A glorious wreck of human ingenuity
I am not a musician. I do not possess the vocabulary necessary to interrogate the sounds I hear when I press play on Obscura. Have we even developed language suitable for such a deranged evolution of the art form? Gorguts delivered a work so boundlessly compelling that it just begs the listener to make an effort, ignorance be damned. What is this masterful ***ing cacophony?
Throughout its hour-long runtime, Obscura masks order with entropy. It is the fury of an unrelenting tornado set upon the earth by cryptic forces. Unseen conductors plotted it’s destructive course for maximum effect. Caught up in its swirl are all manner of things once beautiful, now deformed but somehow emboldened by the calamity. Struggling against it’s might I spot some recognizable debris: the blast of war drums, the metallic chug and twang of distorted guitars, a haunting low-end resonance, the shriek of a man driven to desperation by this terrible ordeal. At its onset, a frenzied proclamation can be heard. “Clouded by the bliss obscura. Covered by the frame of drama”. It’s as though the artistic mission statement is to revel in this inexplicable chaos and embrace our futile struggle against it. Why do we feel we deserve relief from confusion? Perhaps it’s in our nature to ceaselessly pursue answers that will never come.
Sonically, Obscura represents a stunning display of abandon without succumbing to the whimsy of prog wankery. Each track spews forth a series of interwoven ideas like Hadron particles that accelerate towards each other but never quite collide. Though I may not comprehend what binds all of it together, I can’t help but marvel at the moments of clarity I’m afforded – the glacial churn of “Clouded”, the psychedelic riffage throughout the otherworldly “Nostalgia”, the headbang inducing groove of “Raturous Grief”, the catharsis of despair on “Faceless Ones”, and the waning thud of “Sweet Silence” like a stone chisel carving out that mystical effigy occupying the album’s cover.
When the roar finally subsides I’m left with a grim sensation of stillness. In its wake is a silent alien landscape of dust and rubble. Having stared into the glorious wreck of human ingenuity that is Obscura I’m eager for another natural disaster to take hold, though I fear this may have been the last of its kind.
