Obliveon "Nemesis" Cassette

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"From This Day Forward" is a brilliant and phenomenal album in all its scope, progressive death/thrash metal at the highest technical and compositional level and at the same time material a step ahead of other, often much more media-oriented names. Well, unfortunately for today's topic, the Canadian Obliveon did not manage to gain general awareness and - as a result - only a handful of people learned about its genius. In any case, the same applies to their second lp, "Nemesis", which evokes exactly the same enthusiastic words as last time. This is an longplay that should place Obliveon at the forefront of this type of complex music, but instead it's classified somewhere in the distance of this style.
Compared to the debut, there are a lot of changes on "Nemesis", although they did not result in a loss of quality or identity. The band was simply not interested in recording a similar album. After three years, Obliveon have become even more multi-threaded and unpredictable, and the feeling of the instruments is clearly different from that of "From This Day Forward". In practice, this means a very precisely, even surgically produced side of the guitars, a lot of technique (not that there wasn't enough of it before), advanced patterns even where they play more simply (e.g. "Dynamo"), even more hysterical vocals, a more death metal feeling, sterile and extremely transparent sound and a stuffy, mechanical atmosphere slightly filtering with the industrial/groove trend. As for this last element, there is no need to frown, because the above-mentioned influences come down to small effects, overlays or intros - something like on "Arise". Generally, they perfectly complement such a stuffy and oppressive atmosphere.
The remaining components will immediately reveal the genius of this album. Atomic, complicated riffs, thrash-death feeling, intense vocals, expressive bass with and a unique atmosphere - this is just a fragment of what "Nemesis" offers. Like the debut, Obliveon's second album is a prog death/thrash album that you can enjoy and analyze for years. Don't believe? Check out "Obscure Mindways", "Estranging Abduction" (perfectly leading bass), "Factory Of Delusions", "Strays Of The Soul" or the above-mentioned "Dynamo" (with a super catchy, jerky main riff). Enough of a showcase to put "Nemesis" on a par with the most sought-after albums by Death, Atheist and Pestilence.
On their second lp, the Canadians from Obliveon repeated the genius of their debut, but at the same time showed a slightly different side and recorded even bolder material. "Nemesis" is a perfect development of the themes from "From This Day Forward" and - at the same time - something extraordinary and breaking the patterns of progressive style. It's just a pity that this album was pushed aside again.

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