OBITUS : THE MARCH OF THE DRONES
Eerie Art Records
If you come to Obitus with no prior knowledge, the packaging, song titling and ominous, greyscale, two-man line-up might trick you into thinking that “The March of the Drones” is going to be some drifting, bleeping power noise project. Opener “Sacrificial Abolishment”, although guitar-based, is weird, distorted, repetitive and harsh enough to further your confusion, right up to the moment when the nastiest, most hellish, industrially-tinged black metal shape wells up from seemingly nowhere to stab you in the face. If you’re anything like me, you’ll grin like a maniac.
Maybe it’s this preconception, maybe it’s the drum programming or the samples, maybe it’s just the sheer nihilism of Obitus’s slicing, clashing sound, but despite the recognisable black metal structures upon which their music is built, it still seems post-apocalyptic, modern, weird and in no small measure wonderful. There are some starkly raw, muscular, Swedish riffs on display – especially on “Now We’re Nothing” and effortlessly devastating track “The Endless Void” – and in general the guitar work is gutsy and sharp, providing layers of awesomely reverberating shapes in which the black metal fiend can bathe, but there’s a whole lot more going on too, making “The March of the Drones” a challenging listen.
I think I’m right in surmising that this album is intended to be listened to as a whole; there’s hardly any distinction between, for example, the second and third tracks, and particular sounds recur throughout. Certainly, that’s a good way for the listener to tackle it; if you take the seven tracks as one cleverly modulated composition, with frequent outbreaks into unsettling ambience and connecting samples, you’ll be much less fatigued than if you try to understand each section of the horrendous onslaught individually. Sure, for some people this will be a turn-off, but I find it unfair to criticise Obitus for daring to do things by their own rules.
“The March of the Drones” sounds like someone declared futuristic, black metal war within the confines of your skull; it’s remarkably unforgiving, but there are plenty of spiky, varied shapes to which your brain can cling. Probably not one for the faint of heart or the orthodox of mind, but definitely an interesting, engaging and satisfyingly brutal mental workout for those who delight in going against the grain.
79/100
ELLEN SIMPSON
