From This Day Forward

At the complete opposite end of the progressive metal spectrum to bands like Cynic lies Canada’s Obliveon. Emerging from a thrash tradition that co-opted progressive tendencies along the way but remained very much true to the excitable, punky roots of extreme metal, their debut album fits well in a timeline that incorporates Voivod, DBC, and Coroner. Despite the undeniable musicianship of these bands, they retained a brashness and DIY aesthetic which tempered their more overt flirtations with prog. Obliveon’s ‘From this Day Forward’ (1990) should be considered a watermark of progressive metal articulated in the death/thrash vernacular.

But if mid 80s Voivod and Coroner were offering an audial assault of dense, riff packed noise, Obliveon opted to slow the average tempo down a little, allowing the off kilter riffs some space to breathe, and creating an emptiness behind the music that imbued it with a spacey atmosphere, one that all the strained virtuosity of a Vektor have been unable to replicate. There are faster passages of blunt thrash riffing scattered throughout this album, but they serve as transition riffs between unpredictable development sections and disorientating high end guitar leads that jump out of the music to redefine our place within the narrative. This conflict between understated progressive thrash set to mid-paced, swaggering rhythms and the urgency of traditional atonal thrash serves to pinpoint ‘From this Day Forward’ as a transitional album within metal in every sense of the word.

We see the old servicing the new, just as we see the new raising the aspirations of the old. This delicate balance is perfectly poised throughout this album. Everything is rendered with a faint touch of reverb that gives the music a subtly chasmic atmosphere without the need for any keyboards or excessive guitar effects. Drums are heavy but not too dominant. The powerful snare and thundering double-bass are restrained enough to give clarity to the tight and creative performance. Stéphane Picard’s snarled vocals have just a touch of echo to them, offering the album narration as if from a vast hanger. So creative and numerous are the riffs and solos that the guitars need little to enhance their tone.

They jump from meaty thrash riffs to delicately picked high end staccato leads that are almost haunting in their tantalising relationship with melodic development. At moments of heightened tension the drums will match their rhythmic emphasis, raising the overall intensity of the music, before breaking away into a simple one/two punk beat as the narrative develops. The lead guitars will sometimes trade blows with the bass, as the latter takes up the refrain introduced by the former, gradually building an unfolding concoction of spatial unknowns.

It should be noted that none of this is overtly technical by the standards of progressive music. The riffs take on unexpected shapes and forms as they develop, but owing to the relatively suppressed tempos, there is a deliberation and patience to the way these tracks unfold that grants it a tension and unease lacking in denser displays of musicality. Instrumental breaks of clean guitars also serve to compliment the ever-present empty space that sits behind every moment of this album, offering idiosyncratic harmonies to lead into blunted power chord riffs. It’s an effect that is hard to pin down, seeing as silence lurks behind all musical endeavour. But on ‘From this Day Forward’, the emptiness that sits behind the modest layers of reverb present on instrument invokes a void at the heart of this album, a non-existence that we are acutely aware of between each pause, but can never quite grasp as the music marches ever onwards.

'From this Day Forward' is blue collar prog in every sense of the word. The simple fact is that – for all their tension, poise, and unbridled creativity – Obliveon still behave like a metal band. They build riffs into one another, which in turn connect up to form a narrative, with guitar leads and solos heightening the tension and resolve in their own sui generis framework. The progressive format is incidental to this goal; a means to an end. But for progressive metal that sits at the borders of death and thrash, few compete with this album.

Originally published at Hate Meditations