obituary - inked in blood

long overdue re-pressing of this great comeback record of florida's finest - obituary. first record for relapse and what a belter it is. cloudy red vinyl out of 2.603 copies. relapse records. 2014/22.

obituary - world demise

listenable records from france released quite a few pearls of osdm from back in the early nineties over the last couple of years. so they did with almost the first half of the obituary back catalogue. i was eyeing the fourth album of the band in particular. double white vinyl out of 500 copies. 2021.

obituary - frozen in time

the whole obituary back catalogue was re-pressed as of late and french label listenable records is responsible. i do have quite a few original pressings but already bought a re-issue of "back from the dead" at the end of last year. so now it is about "frozen in time" from 2005. this record marks the band's comeback from their seven year hiatus and it was pretty successful.

again obituary worked with roadrunner records to release their sixth studio album. i believe, that there was no initial vinyl pressing. cargo records from germany released a black vinyl edition in 2011 and this was steadily available since then. i was close to a purchase a few times but other things demanded more of my attention. so i am happy to not have to think about getting another copy and to grab me a nice colour vinyl version instead.

musically obituary did not fuck around. pummeling and no frills death metal is what you get and this is exactly what i want when i spin an obituary record. one of my favourite artworks the band ever had is featured on "frozen in time". super lovely blue marble vinyl as the perfect fit for the cover art. 200 copies made in a single pocket sleeve and an insert. i hope listenable got the rights for the two candlelight records releases of the band as well. we'll see. listenable records. 2019.

obituary - back from the dead

i am finally back with some obituary vinyl. i thought the title of the album was pretty apt for my little comeback here. we moved into the new house eventually and now i feel like i can lean back and dive headfirst into my vinyl collection again. in the meantime a few bits landed at my doorstep but this is one from the old batch. i recieved "back from the dead" with the self-titled devildriver record.

when i ordered the latest two vinyl re-issues from relapse, listenable records from france offered a few re-issues of old obituary classics theirselves. in a reliable regularity listenable cranks out those roadracer/roadrunner classics from the death metal heyday in the early nineties. suffocation, gorguts, malevolent creation and now obituary. they started with "the end complete", "dead" and "back from the dead". i opted for the latter one because i have an original of the first one and don't need another live record of obituary.

the album marks the last recording before the band went on a hiatus for six years. considering the dark times for death metal in the late nineties, i suppose the record wasn't commercially successful. musically it is a typical obituary piece of doomy death metal the way i like it. listenable did the album justice with its vinyl treatment. slip sleeve, heavy cardboard stock insert and semi-translucent red vinyl make for a sharp first vinyl pressing. 1000 copies made. roadrunner records. 1997. listenable records. 2018.

obituary - ten thousand ways to die

when the pre-orders for the new pressing of the obituary self-titled record went live, relapse also offered another bit of obituary vinyl. in 2016 the band released an e.p. with two new songs and a selection of live songs played throughout a north american tour. back then it was pressed to cd and to black vinyl only. now the label decided to give the release the colour vinyl treatment. usually i don't care for such e.p.'s but i got caught up in the excitement and ordered a copy of the most limited colour-way.

a few things went wrong from there on. first one wasn't my fault. after a few weeks i got an e-mail from relapse telling me that they had european warehouse problems and couldn't deliver me the most limited edition anymore. great! what's the use of being quick to the pre-order when the label fucks up your order? they offered me a copy of the lesser limited version and of course i said "yes". the release date came and no shipping notification. i waited a week or so and still no info. i fired off a mail and they answered with a new shipping date, which faced another uninformed delay. man, i don't have a problem with waiting, just keep me informed. that is all i ask for.

the last thing that went wrong was well my fault. i did not know that the two studio songs were not part of the vinyl edition but the live songs only. oh boy, after all this hassle with the colour-way fuck up and the shipping delay, i didn't even get the two studio songs i was actually interested in (ok, the title track is also on the self-titled record). i don't think i will play the record much and will most likely end up selling it at some point. all in all a dissatisfying order with relapse. not the first one. i will stick to my strategy of avoiding to order directly from them where possible. relapse records. 2016/2018.

obituary - s/t

i am pretty busy at the moment. my wife, the kid and i are in the process of moving into a new house and a bit of refurbishing is necessary. therefore i won't have too much of spare time this month. enough of that for now. the first post of the month is reserved for the latest obituary full length released a year ago on relapse records. i missed out on the first coloured run and so i sat and waited for a further pressing. this came a few months ago and i pre-ordered quickly.

thanks to social media in the form of instagram i was fast enough to grab a limited colour edition, which i most likely would have missed out on if i relied on the newsletter only. for this pressing relapse changed the cover colours a bit and gave the lettering plus dragon a green tinge. furthermore there are two bonus tracks included and the vinyl comes on semi-translucent green with splatter vinyl. all this limited to 100 copies only. so far, so good.

this sounds like a pretty sweet obituary vinyl package, if there wasn't a minor problem. musically this is the weakest obituary effort i came across so far. i played it a few times and there are just a few songs from the b-side that really can keep my attention up for their whole duration. the rest is like lift background music. to be fair, i just listened to it a handful of times so maybe it will grow on me but for now i am quite underwhelmed. relapse records. 2017/2018.

obituary - slowly we rot

the second record i bought at the record fair in hamburg. to get a madball and a obituary record must have been destiny. on the way to the fair my friend and me were listening to some madball songs and when he asked me what i was looking for, i told him that i was out for some early nineties death metal - stuff like obituary. then my buddy was the one who pulled "slowly we rot" from the racks. a good condition of the vinyl and a fair price were the last pieces to the predetermined puzzle.

obituary debut full length "slowly we rot" is considered a classic for all the right reasons. not only was the record one of the first death metal releases but also it was one of the first works of producer scott burns at the infamous morrisound studios in tampa, florida. burns graced numerous death metal records with a great sound and mix. at the time of recording the band still was called xecutioner.

shortly before the release of the debut the band changed its name into obituary. "slowly we rot" became quite successful for a first full length and it paved the way for killer records to come. musically obituary were already this distinctive groove monster only in an early stage. the record is pretty raw but this only adds to the old school feel. great record all around. check it out here.

when i looked into discogs to find my copy, i was a bit confused whether i have a first press or not. five to six different versions are listed which seemed all to be made in 1989. my copy has a worked over centre label with the corrected band name (was misspelled on other versions as "obituari"). so maybe this is not a first press? anyway, this record fair was a nice experience. looking forward to the next one. roadrunner records. 1989.

obituary - cause of death

obituary's second full length "cause of death" was supposed to arrive at my doorstep way earlier than "the end complete" but an incompetent employee of the local post office upset my plans. but from the beginning: i was on the hunt for some serious classic death metal and obituary's "cause of death" was high on the list. i found a seller from austria on discogs who had a nice copy with a very reasonable price tag and bearable shipping costs. i pulled the trigger on it and just had to wait for it to arrive, right? right.

after six weeks of waiting i got back into e-mail contact with the seller, asking him if he had a tracking number or anything. he negatively replied and noticed that such a long delivery time was quite unusual. he told me to look further into the matter when back from vacation. another two weeks later i got a mail with a photo attached. it showed the parcel with a note that said "returned because not collected at the post office". i don't know what happened but i swear to god i never got a pick-up note in the mail box. fuck that! anyway, the seller gave me a refund of the money less shipping.

with that money i was able to catch a copy on ebay in lovely condition. i had to pay a bit more than for the discogs copy but it did arrive leastwise. musically "cause of death" is a rager from beginning to the end. a tiny bit more groove and less doom than on "the end complete" but that doesn't mean that this record is better or weaker than the other. both are fantastic in their own right. i love the jaguar centre labels of this pressing and the promotion sheet that comes with the record. on a side note: the artwork was actually slotted for sepultura's "beneath the remains". however the label altered the actual plans. roadracer is an imprint of roadrunner records. 1990.

obituary - the end complete

since i am in an early nineties death metal state of mind, there was no way around obituary. there were and are a lot of influential death metal bands from florida and obituary are definitely the spearhead of that movement. a groove monster with the right dosage of technicality and john tardy's signature growls on top. one of the most recognisable voices in metal, sounds like constant vomiting. fantastic. so when i was out for some original pressings, obituary wasn't to be missed.

obituary released all their early albums on roadrunner records and its imprints. this meant that original pressings wouldn't come cheap. when i fought my way through the different listings at discogs, ebay and the like, i stumbled upon a seller from russia. he had the third obituary record "the end complete" on offer for a very moderate price. of course shipping wasn't cheap but condition seemed to be ok and all together i paid even less than for ebay options without shipping.

when the record finally arrived, i wasn't that convinced of my purchase anymore. the cover is pretty worn at the edges and the printed dust sleeve has a seam split. ok, it's a loved one, i can live with that quite well. then again, the vinyl has some significant surface noise which bothers me at times. so this will teach me not to save money on the wrong things in the future. anyway, i love the record. the chainsaw guitar sound, the doomy touch to the song-writing - check it out here. released on roadrunner's r/c imprint. 1992.