Band:	Obscura
Album:	A Sonication
Style:	Progressive death metal, Technical death metal
Release date:	February 07, 2025
A review by:	musclassia

01. Silver Linings
02. Evenfall
03. In Solitude
04. The Prolonging
05. Beyond The Seventh Sun
06. Stardust
07. The Sun Eater
08. A Sonication

From a complete line-up overhaul through to plagiarism allegations, it’s not been the smoothest journey to release for A Sonication; while difficult circumstances sometimes result in the creation of masterpieces, this latest Obscura record is probably not destined to become such an example.

I’ve suddenly been getting old clips from Friends recommended to me on YouTube in the past few weeks (not the greatest show ever, but a nice nostalgia trip in bleak times), and the episode where Ross and Chandler fight over who came up with a joke, only to be told that the joke sucks and nobody should be proud of inventing it, has come to mind a bit when ponering the ongoing controversy over claims from multiple recently departed members that content on A Sonication written by them was used without permission. Now, that’s absolutely not to say that A Sonication sucks, but the decidedly mixed critical and audience responses in the immediate aftermath of its release, while likely being influenced to some degree by said claims, does raise some questions over how badly one might want to assert ownership over those ideas.

As mentioned earlier, Obscura enter this latest phase of their existence with a line-up that (founder and sole remaining original member Steffen Kummerer aside) is entirely new as of the last 12 months. It’s truly remarkable how many giants of the tech-metal scene have come and gone from the band’s ranks in official, guest or live musician capacity, and yet Kummerer can still find leading talent to recruit; on A Sonication, he is joined by ex-Maladie guitarist Kevin Olasz, ex-Cynic/Exivious bassist Robin Zielhorst, and James Stewart (Decapitated, Sermon, ex-Vader and more) on drums. A tenuous link to Cynic can be heard in the cameo use of vocoder vocals on the closing title track, but the album as a whole is going in a very different direction.

At the time of its release, A Valediction was referred to as arguably the band’s most melodic release to date, with clear nods to Gothenburg metal on a handful of songs (particularly with Björn Strid making a guest appearance on one track), but that album was still undeniably Obscura tech-death. This time around, Obscura have gone far further forward in a shift towards a more melodic approach; ‘technical Gothenburg’ doesn’t feel amiss at times, but also the music in general feels notably less technicality-oriented. While Zielhorst is happily meandering around on bass in a worthy continuation of the legacy set by Jeroen Paul Thesseling, Christian Münzner is a hard act to follow, and Olasz evidently decided to go in a different direction.

Is this necessarily a bad thing? While the solos and guitar leads are less dizzying, they are rich in melody in a way that renders them generally satisfying, whether it’s the bright tapping line beneath the chorus of “Silver Linings”, the overlapping guitar duet in brief romp “The Prolonging”, or the pleasant arpeggios in “Beyond The Seventh Sun”. However, some will rightfully argue that a lot of Obscura’s appeal rests upon their virtuosity, and when it’s toned down to the extent it is on “The Sun Eater”, a death/thrash effort with a fair chunk of mid-tempo chugging, arguably something has been lost.

Having given the album a few listens, I do get why some of the reactions have expressed a strong sense of being underwhelmed; even going beyond the subpar production that dulls some of the impact of the drums, there are songs on here, particularly the more simplistic and plodding “Evenfall”, that lack a real spark. At the same time, I would be lying if I said I didn’t get a solid amount of enjoyment out of the album’s balancing of guitar melody with moderate technical extremity; “Silver Linings” and “In Solitude” both nail the transition into slower grandstand chorus sections more successfully than the song that they sandwich, and have enough satiating technical intensity in the surrounding songs to maximize the contrast. Additionally, “The Prolonging” is entertaining in its rampant approach, and across the riffs, leads and solos in “Stardust”, there’s enough decent hooks being thrown that a few of them should sink into most listeners.

That said, while I find it to be a far more likeable album than some of the more polarized opinions on the record frame it to be, I am also inclined to join the emerging consensus that A Sonication ranks near the bottom of the band’s discography. The fight over its constituent ideas may run a while longer, but in truth, in spite of its strengths, this is an album that is quite likely to fade into relative obscurity in the years to come.