Infinitum Obscure - The Luminous Black

INFINITUM OBSCURE - The Luminous Black (DEATHGASM - CD 2013)

I discovered the music of Infinitum Obscure only few months ago, to be honest. After reading so many interviews and reviews about them I just decided that I must finally check this band out and see if they’re worth of all the noise around them… So I got their second full length album “Sub Atris Caelis” and right afterwards I got also their old split release with Ancient Gods and finally also a 7”EP “Obscuridad Eterna”. Why have I got all those releases of this Mexican band? Well, I guess the answer is very simple – I just really liked their music and consider Infinitum Obscure as one of the best Mexican bands ever! It’s a shame that I cannot get “Internal Dark Force” anywhere, but now everything what matters is that finally three years after the release of “Sub Atris Caelis” the band released something new… It is a short, three track only, miniCD titled “The Luminous Black”.

This short release’s main aim is obviously to announce coming of the next full length album from Infinitum Obscure and I must say that I can’t wait to listen to it. This appetiser is just… hmm, delicious hehe! Three songs are here, as I said: one is a brand new track, then there’s a re-recording of an oldie and finally a Bathory cover… Starting with the last one, Infinitum Obscure recorded their version of “Through Blood by Thunder” – it is classic and wonderful song, beautiful epic Viking metal from one of the best Bathory LPs ever “Twilight of the Gods”. I must say that the choice of the cover was a bit surprising for me, but it turned out that Infinitum Obscure played it so fucking well… Their version is very close to the original really, even the clean vocals – something what I was most afraid of, as Quorthon’s clean, epic singing was very emotional and unique – has been performed perfectly and almost sound like it was Quorthon singing here… Very good cover tune, if you ask.

And then there are these two Infinitum Obscure songs… “The Luminous Black (Ode to the Fallen Angel)” and “Path to Apocalypse” are their titles… and well, the first one, which is a brand new song, is very,  very long, lasting 10 minutes, epic tune, quite melodic and also relatively slow. I must confess that I expected maybe something more aggressive and eerie. Meanwhile, as I said, the music on this song is sort of melodic and slow, very calm in some fragments… still played in the dark death metal style, but definitely it is not something what fans of utterly brutal stuff will like. Listen to this opening theme or that great, long melodic guitar solo in it… WOW! Well, from one hand it is a sign of a band, which successfully developed their own style and has charisma to play something like this and also have some great ideas and compositional skills… and from the other hand it is something what some of you may find as a little bit too weak or monotonous for this sort of music. But in this review I’m writing about my own feelings towards the music and I must say that I really, really like it. I feel like the atmosphere, which Infinitum Obscure created in this song is just one of a kind and very possessing and even if the song is so slow and harmonious, it is also very, very good. It sounds like Dissection, but much calmer and more majestic, in some ways, more epic… And as for “Path to Apocalypse”, well I don’t have the debut album, so I wasn’t familiar with this song, so I cannot compare it to the original version. But this one sounds very well as well, this track is more varied than “The Luminous Black (Ode to the Fallen Angel)” and while the opening riff sounds almost like heavy metal, then further on the song develops into more aggressive and sometimes even quite fast, still slightly melodic death metal, with dark and eerie atmosphere. I don’t actually know the reason for re-recording this song, but I don’t care – it sounds damn well and is good addition to the whole miniCD, which I must say is very interesting and absorbing listening experience. “The Luminous Black” may not be a thing, which some will like instantly and it may require several careful listening sessions, but personally once I really listened to it I just liked it a lot. And if “The Luminous Black (Ode to the Fallen Angel)” is an announcement of the next album then I have no worries, it will be great album, I hope though that it won’t entirely focus on just slow and melodic paying and will be able also to smash our heads properly. So far it is all good…

Standout track: “The Luminous Black (Ode to the Fallen Angel)”

Final rate: 85/100