Single Slam – Sentence Day by Obituary (Obituary)

Death metal pioneers, Obituary, have a new album coming out through Relapse Records on March the 17th this year. The album, which is self titled, will be the band’s 10th studio album and is the follow up to 2014’s Inked In Blood. The Florida based metal band have been long term drivers of death metal having been around in some form since 1984. Originally called Executioners, then Xecutioners, they became Obituary in 1989, just before the release of their first full length album called Slowly We Rot.

Obituary are out on tour for a large part of 2017 including a main stage slot at Bloodstock Festival in the UK as well as a big tour across the United States and Canada in March and April as support for thrash icons Kreator. With the first date of that tour coinciding with the release date of the album, March 17th, it is great to see a band that have been around as long as Obituary hitting the road with a chunk of new material, and not just a greatest hits set.

The new song, Sentence Day, was released with a new music video which you can see from the link below. It is a nice collage of old pictures and flyers of the band and their fans from the last 20 or 30 years. Musically, well, it starts off very recognisable as Obituary. There is a deep, low and bass heavy groove added by Terry Butler to the lightning fast riffing and Donald Tardy is bashing the drums like a man possessed. The song is 2 minutes and 49 seconds long and is both heavy and uncompromising. It follows the pattern of a short, shouted verse which ends with a flurry of guitar soloing. The guitar soloing is maybe not quite what you would expect from them with some high pitched, virtuoso styled lead guitar but it is really good.There isn’t a chorus per se, I guess the solo is the chorus really. After a few verses we get an extended solo with some great dual guitars from Trevor Peres and Kenny Andrews before a huge roar from lead singer, John Tardy, leads you back into another short verse. The song ends as abruptly as it starts too with a short drum fill and then sudden stop.

Sentence Day is a song that is going to go down a treat in the pit. It isn’t creatively fresh or unique but not everything has to be. Sometimes you need some old school heavy metal. There are loads of good solos, huge riffs and drums played at breakneck speed and it is all packed into a track that is less then 3 minutes long which is quite impressive.

While Sentence Day isn’t going to set the world alight, it is a good solid heavy metal song and has a load of strong solos in it. It is just the first track of the new album and with new music and loads of tour dates ahead of them, it definitely shows how relevant Obituary are still today.

Check the song and video out for yourself on the band’s official YouTube channel, here. If you like what you hear, you can preorder the album from Relapse Records as well as check out a load of Obituary merchandise. Give the band a like or follow over on Facebook or Twitter too for more information on them and the new album.