Obituary - Inked In Blood

Published October 25 2014

*=Staff's pick	Centuries Of Lies Violent By Nature Pain Inside Visions In My Head* Back On Top Violence* Inked in Blood Deny You Within A Dying Breed Minds Of The World* Out of Blood Paralyzed With Fear*

Genre	Death Metal	John Tardy	Vocals
Tracks	12	Trevor Peres	Guitar
Running time	49 Min.	Kenny Andrews	Guitar
Label	Relapse Records	Terry Butler	Bass
Release	27 October 2014	Donald Tardy	Drums
Country	USA	-	Keyboard
Producer	Obituary
Similar artists	---

This review is going to be relatively short. The core point is that Obituary anno 2014 sounds like Obituary always has. It's the same guitar sound, generally the same structure on all songs, they alternate between the same two tempos as they always have and the production is almost the same.

I really loved Obituary during the 80's and the 90's, but somewhere around the Back From The Dead album (1997) I completely lost them. I grew sick and tired of their sound and the fact that they seemed to forge exactly the same handful of riffs in the same way over and over again, and live they have lately made a quite tired and dull appearance.

They still operate within the extremely tight box they built a quarter of a decade ago but - to put it their own words - they really hit the metal nail on the head with this album.

I have not been this exited over an Obituary album in almost twenty years. In fact, I have not even listened to them more than sporadically during that period, but this album I feel like spinning over and over again.

The production is instantly recognisable but clearer and crisper than ever, yet fat and suits the music perfect, and John Tardy has never sung this good before. He is articulating better but still sounds brutal and is a perfect complement to the groovy and stomping attacks delivered by guitarist Peres.

There is a relentless, grinding and fleshy flow throughout the album and their trademark slow passages in the songs is being held to a minimum this time. There are just enough of them to create a necessary balance and they seem to have a purpose instead of just being momentum killers like many times before. There are of course mid tempo songs and parts to be found but overall the tempo feels slightly above average for a modern Obituary album with the exception of Xecutioner's Return.

It sounds fresh, vital, inspired and hungry again, and even if the riffs sound very familiar and you wonder how it's humanly possible to keep squeezing even one more song out of them, you get a good deal of delicious attacks thrown in your face, especially in Visions In My Head and Paralyzed With Fear, where Bolt Thrower briefly comes to mind in terms of the feeling of being run over by a tank.

One of the spearheads of the genre really delivers and is once again interesting. The title of the Back From The Dead album would have been a perfect fit for this effort instead.

See also review of: Obituary , Frozen In Time

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
6	6	7	8	8

Summary
8 chalices of 10 - Tommy