With most Finnish bands chasing the
Nightwish or
H.I.M. gothic pomp bandwagon in the mid-2000s, those who insist on pursuing heavy metal's more uncompromising agendas (black, death, etc.), must feel like exiles within the scene; one of them, the storied
Sentenced, even upped and called it quits. Yes, established acts like
Impaled Nazarene will always find new ways of skinning the same old goat (thank Hades!), but what of Finland's fledgling upstarts such as, say, Jyväskylä's
Obscurant, whose melodic and synthesizer-drenched take on mid-paced death metal (not at all unlike the aforementioned
Sentenced, in fact), has yet to gain a toehold in listeners' skulls? One supposes that time, plus the reception accorded the group's all-important second album,
First Degree Suicide, will tell soon enough. That opus arrives following some worrisome personnel shifts within the group, but otherwise shows a formula little changed from that of their debut, as driving slabs of post-Gothenburg death metal like "In the End," "Guardian Angel," and "170603 (Memoir)," compare quite favorably with the music of genre predecessors like
Dark Tranquility,
Rapture, and (again)
Sentenced. Curiously though, the even slower likes of "The Redemption," "Blinded by Love," the excellent title cut, and most every other track here never waiver from their steadily pounding mid-paced tempos; relying purely on steady, slow-burning intensity (not quite approaching doom-like sloth) to say their piece, where most other bands at least try to change things up with octopus-like percussive displays and complex time signatures. In their own, unique way and thanks to main man Sami Luukkainen's talents at both death shrieking and clean singing, the above still tend to work, but its hard to imagine many of these tunes' almost waltz-like cadences translating into the mosh pit. Not all metal requires a lesson in violence, however, so here's hoping
Obscurant's solid, if not outright revolutionary, album steals at least a few headlines from those gothic metal poseurs, and a few of their fans, too. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia