Obituary Find Room to Smile in Death Metal, Talk New Album + Early Tampa Scene [Exclusive Interview]

Obituary have been dishing out their Paleolithic death metal since debuting with Slowly We Rot, the heaviest album ever written in E standard, in 1989. As one of the pillars of the early Florida death metal scene and the greater worldwide death metal landscape on the whole, they distinguished themselves immediately with molasses grooves and the thawing caveman growl of John Tardy.

Here they are nearly 30 years later with their self-titled 10th studio album, a searing slab of meat and potatoes death metal that easily sits among classics like the aforementioned debut and Cause of Death. When Don Tardy (drums, founding member) and Terry Butler (bass since 2010) swung by our studio, we took the opportunity to pick their brains about Obituary.

The album has an undeniable sense of fun with screaming, classic metal solos and leads dominating tracks like "Sentence Day." The music video for "Ten Thousand Ways to Die" (seen below) is unwaveringly clever and comical, adding to this jovial atmosphere. With a sound so far removed from anything considered cheerful, we asked the band's rhythm section where this all came from. As it turns out, these guys love to smile!

Diving a bit further into the writing process, we found out the two had no clue what the final version of the songs were going to sound like when heading into the studio. As for writing, did the songs start from a groove or did Obituary stitch together riffs they've compiled? Don and Terry had the answers!

You also may have noticed that Obituary have never used a blast beat and we asked Don if he ever toys around with the idea, even if it's just in practice out of curiosity, but again, we're not here to play spoiler!

Obituary is out now on Relapse Records and fans can pick up their copy at the label's webstore.

See Obituary's Obituary + More of the Best Metal Albums of 2017 (So Far)

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