{"id":164411,"date":"2025-12-02T16:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T16:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/164411\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T16:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T16:42:09","slug":"death-obvious-death-obvious-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/164411\/","title":{"rendered":"Death Obvious – Death Obvious Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Back in August, I went goo-goo over an avant-black duo under Transcending Obscurity called Hexrot and, as a lowly N00b, awarded their debut Formless Ruin of Oblivion<\/a> a \u201cGreat\u201d designation. Flash forward, and sloshing through the promo sump comes an avant-black duo under Transcending Obscurity called Death Obvious, offering their self-titled debut. Composed of vocalist Lea Lavey and everything-else-er Sima Sioux, this Finnish duo reveal high aspirations with claims of \u201ccrafting music as it suits their demented vision in a recklessly intuitive manner\u201d while pitching Death Obvious for fans of visionary acts like Blut aus Nord, Deathspell Omega, Veilburner and\u2014looky!\u2014Hexrot. My excitement in snagging Death Obvious was, like Death Obvious\u2019 apparent expectations, quite high. Does Death Obvious live up to either?<\/p>\n

With Death Obvious, you can pick out distinct moments of black, death and doom metal bubbling to the surface of Death Obvious\u2019 style-soup. Death Obvious is sworn chiefly to the blackened arts, communicating primarily through Lavey\u2019s hideous rasps and Sioux\u2019s tremolo riffs and blast beats, with second-wave inspired ragers \u201cThe Third Eye Burning\u201d and \u201cMercury Off Axis\u201d making no bones about their caustic, reverb-heavy attack. Death and doom are the more secondary sounds of Death Obvious, with death appearing on the chunkier, mid-paced moments of songs like \u201cSanctuario\u201d and doom manifesting into spacier, drawn-out passages like the start of \u201cThe Great Gate Theory,\u201d which put me in mind, surprisingly, of Khemmis\u2019 Hunted. When Death Obvious\u2019 songwriting clicks, like on album highlight \u201cSanctuario\u201d or portions of closer \u201cCatechismus for the Plagued,\u201d sounds really do hurtle in exciting, dangerous manners that makes Death Obvious a killer listen.<\/p>\n

Most of Death Obvious is indistinct, however, due to Death Obvious\u2019 directionless songwriting and murky production. Death Obvious relishes in dissonance both clean (\u201cTotal Heavenly Desolation\u201d) and dirty (\u201cSuffer the Spectacle\u201d). But instead of building tension or suspense, Death Obvious creates tedium through dissonance, leading to neither release nor deeper discomfort but to a monotonous drone of black metal murk. This is exacerbated by Sioux\u2019s guitar tone, which in Death Obvious\u2019 faster moments can sound like a totally nebulous melange of reverb. To their credit, Death Obvious\u2019 bass-forward mixing helps mitigate this somewhat, providing plucky, crunchy bass riffs like on \u201cThe Great Gate Theory.\u201d It does nothing, however, for the busy, opaque mix that, damn the DR score, sounds boxed-in and flat. Death Obvious\u2019 noise problem is encapsulated right off with \u201cMercury Off Axis,\u201d opening with an excruciating, high-pitched drill sound that puts me in mind of the dentist and carries on well past its intro. It\u2019s not pleasant, Obviously the point, but it\u2019s not interesting either.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Death Obvious falters because Death Obvious simply doesn\u2019t bring enough to the table. Not only is structure neglected on Death Obvious, but individual songs largely have little going for them beyond the black metal basics; over-repetition is chronic on tracks like \u201cAs Absence Expands over Everything,\u201d and monotony abounds because of it. Beyond rare instances of effective piano and non-dental sound effects, Death Obvious blurs together in limited patterns played ad nauseam, making it an effort for the listener to stay focused throughout. Like how Death Obvious\u2019 style issues were made plain by its opener, its songwriting woes are exemplified by its eight-minute closer, \u201cCatechismus for the Plagued.\u201d Half of \u201cCatechismus\u2026\u201d anyway: the half that is one (1) riff, two (2) chords sharing one (1) root note hammered on and off at straight eighth notes with zero variation in dynamics or accent. The other half with creepy keys and an otherworldly soundscape shows what Death Obvious can be when playing inspired material. The one riff is what Death Obvious mostly offers: after a while, it doesn\u2019t really sound like anything.<\/p>\n

Death Obvious embodies the obtuse nature of avant-garde music with little of the adventurousness of its best practitioners. Instead of sounding unbound, it feels as though Death Obvious let the songs get away from them. I\u2019m not sure if Death Obvious needs more editing, further drafting or both, but as is I can hardly pay attention for the entirety of one listen through. Death Obvious are a talented duo, and I believe they\u2019ll have better material down the line, as moments throughout their debut hint at better things to come. However, not only did I not go goo-goo over Death Obvious, but I\u2019m sure I won\u2019t be returning to it much at all.<\/p>\n

\ufeff<\/p>\n

Rating: Bad
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps MP3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records<\/a>
Websites: deathobvious.bandcamp.com<\/a> | facebook.com\/DeathObvious<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: December 5th, 2025<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back in August, I went goo-goo over an avant-black duo under Transcending Obscurity called Hexrot and, as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[47906,9342,96128,26973,51431,12564,98469,98470,98471,11435,146,68703,98472,85,46,98473,409,1529,1530,67561,80575,98474],"class_list":{"0":"post-164411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-1-5","9":"tag-9342","10":"tag-avant-garde","11":"tag-black-metal","12":"tag-blut-aus-nord","13":"tag-death-metal","14":"tag-death-obvious","15":"tag-deathspell-omega","16":"tag-dec25","17":"tag-doom-metal","18":"tag-entertainment","19":"tag-finnish-metal","20":"tag-hexrot","21":"tag-il","22":"tag-israel","23":"tag-khemmis","24":"tag-music","25":"tag-review","26":"tag-reviews","27":"tag-transcending-obscurity-records","28":"tag-veilburner","29":"tag-vomitheist"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}