OBSCURA completes new line-up with rejoining guitarist CHRISTIAN MÜNZNER After a six-year break, legendary German guitarist Christian Münzner (ETERNITY'S END, PARADOX, ALKALOID, ex- NECROPHAGIST, ex- SPAWN OF POSSESSION) has rejoined the German progressive death metallers OBSCURA as a permanent member. Münzner, known for his virtuoso guitar playing in extreme metal, joined OBSCURA in 2008 and recorded the band's critically acclaimed full-length albums "Cosmogenesis" (2009) and "Omnivium" (2011), both released via Relapse Records. He has toured the world, collaborated internationally with several groups as session player and is also working as guitar teacher. Christian says, " I'm very excited to be back in the band. After my departure in 2014 I stayed very active on the scene in various formats, but I needed some time off from the busy touring schedule to take the time and learn to manage my hand issues, regroup my thoughts about my musical future and focus on some other matters that were going on in my life at that time. I'm happy to say I'm back with a vengeance and I feel I have taken my playing to a new level in recent years, and I can't wait to share with all the Obscura fans what we are working on at the moment. During my time away from the band we remained in touch, and in recent years I felt my interest in extreme music and the drive to write and play in that style resurfacing, it feels like everything came together at the perfect moment. I think we are having a very strong line-up and I am excited about the future of OBSCURA". Among his solo releases "Timewarp" (2011), "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" (2014) and "Path of the Hero" (2020), he also appeared on NECROPHAGIST's critically acclaimed second studio album, "Epitaph" (2004), SPAWN OF POSSESSION's third studio album, "Incurso" (2012), PARADOX's sixth studio album "Tales Of The Weird" (2012), ALKALOID's first and second studio albums, "The Malkuth Grimoire" (2015), "Liquid Anatomy" (2018), ETERNITY'S END's first and second albums, "The Fire Within" (2016) and "Unyielding" (2018). As revealed last month, Dutch fretless bass player Jeroen Paul Thesseling rejoined OBSCURA after a nine-year break. Earlier this month the group also announced Austrian drummer David Diepold as their new member. Now, with the comeback of former guitarist Christian Münzner, 75% of the classic Cosmogenesis (2009) and Omnivium (2011) line-up is reunited.
Spoiler: Bandcamp full album Sanctifying Ritual; anybody into putrid death metal that still has some thrash in there should check this album out. Has that vibe of the demo tapes from the 80's when "metal of death" was still this amorphous mixture of 80's genres, before subgenres came around and started pigeonholing most bands. Fucking crushing sound!
2020 has been pretty good for death metal so far, still a lot of stuff to come out (Repuked, Deeds of Flesh, Undeath, Gorephilia, Cadaver, Arsebreed, Cryptae, Skelethal, Malignant Altar, Siderean, StarGazer, Undergang blah blah...) This is all the death metal shit I fuck with this year. Albums: Afterbirth - Four Dimensional Flesh Defeated Sanity - The Sanguinary Impetus Skeletal Remains - The Entombment of Chaos Just Before Dawn - An Army at Dawn Thætas - Shrines to Absurdity Scarab - Martyrs of the Storm Incantation - Sect of Vile Divinities Apep - The Invocation of the Deathless One VoidCeremony - Entropic Reflections Continuum: Dimensional Unravel Perdition Temple - Sacraments of Descension Sanctifying Ritual - Sanctifying Ritual EPs: Deliquesce - Engineered Frailty Tzun Tzu - The Forbidden City Shinda Saibo no Katamari - Ostriched Existence Sutrah - Aletheia Just Before Dawn - Who Knows What the Dark Brings Bastard Priest - Vengeance...of the Damned Fleshvessel - Bile of Man Reborn Wargrinder - Ironclad Destroyer Repression - Portals to Twisted Frailties Reeking Aura - Beneath the Canopy of Compost Effluence - Subneural Entropic Dysgenesis Hyperdontia - Excreted From the Flesh Ripping Flesh - Conqueror of Cosmos Demos: Taphos - Blood Plethora Perversion - Archaic Death Metal Cerebral Rot - Spewing Purulence Anthropophagous - Post-Natal Abortion Hecatomb - Horrid Invocations
