Traditions With No Certain End: Transcending Obscurity Label Sampler 2025
I hope in time you can learn to forgive me.
I set out to write 26-word responses to the 26 tracks comprising the 2025 Transcending Obscurity Label Sampler. I accomplished this goal. It has been such a pleasure and honour to premiere so many Transcending Obscurity tracks and albums, a pleasure and honour I hope is bestowed upon me in the new year. Take this as a pledge to the future. Consider this a lightly curated real-time diary of my experience with this table-setting, year-starting amuse bouche.
Floating – “I Reached The Mew”
These Uppsala upstarts mash gothic post-punk into proggy, off-kilter death metal. Think about Dream Unending meets Pøltergeist with random icy blasts from northern climes.
Byonoisegenerator – “Eb(D#)”
For sax-crazed Zornian jazzgrindfreaks only! Will we see a new album from the mad lad from Perm this year? Like their songs, it’s impossible to tell.
Veilburner – “That Which Crypts Howl Grandeur”
Perhaps a leftover from The Duality of Decapitation and Wisdom? I love how sepulchral and twisted everything gets around 4:13. And then its curtains at 4:39.
Serpent Corpse – “Iron Corpse”
We got all sorts of corpses down at the Corpse-R-Us! A burly, roid-raged crossover like if Iron Age played death metal. A whole heap of potential.
Dead Chasm – “Spectral Tyranny”
After two releases with FDA Records, these cavern-haunting Italians are joining Transcending Obscurity. A lean, quick burst of clinking death/doom in the vein of Dead Congregation.
Viande – “L’homme Brasier”
Playing an ugly, psychologically warped death metal à la labelmates Saevus Finis lets the band’s pulverizing guitar tone turn you into a mere piece of viande.
Thorn – “Quartersawn Remains”
Evergloom was a big hit around here in 2023. Whatever this one-man Phoenix band has planned for 2025 is molasses-thick with ear-tunneling riffs and sky-high expectations.
Retching – “Shower Curtain Sillhouette”
“Dilating Satan’s anus with our Virgin Steele speculums” fittingly (?) describes this no-bullshit, breakdown-laden death metal outta Rhode Island. The Ocean State has never been heavier.
Eschaton – “Blood of the People”
High-octane all-go-no-slow tech-death with some gurgling brutality and just a hint of deathcore for folks who are into that kind of thing. Really exciting, relentless track.
Unaligned – “Essence Erased”
These slimy South Florida freaks are stepping up to the Big Leagues. Charcoal-black streaks highlight an organic, fitful, bilious technicality that should have everyone dangerously stoked.
Fleshbore – “The Ancient Knowledge”
Another Archspire-inspired tech-death ripper from the rapidly approaching Painted Paradise. (Out on January 24th!) Word on the street is these dudes have leveled up somethin’ fierce.
Enragement – “Insectiferous Abomination”
Peaceful and calming like reading Finnish great Tove Jansson’s dreamy Sommarboken. Wait. No. This is battle-damaged, maniacal brutal death metal played with a frightening, fearless precision.
Haxprocess – “The Confines of the Flesh”
Naming yourselves after an Opeth song is certainly better than, say, Queef Huffer. This lengthy, rewarding track mixes ’80s thrash with far-ranging ’90s DM prog weirdness.
Xenosis – “Altar of the Hound”
A few seconds into “Altar of the Hound” and you’ll be oh-so-shocked to learn Spear has been all over this band for years. Raging tech-death madness.
Imperialist – “Starstorm”
Like a sci-fi Thulcandra that plays nicely with labelmates Vorga, Let’s call it… At the Heart of Nuclear Winter. Heavy melodic black metal from the cosmos.
Skaphos – “Abyssal Tower”
Following their 2024 single “Cult of Uzura” with the chthonic and vertiginous “Abyssal Tower,” label newcomers Skaphos mix black and death metal that gestures towards dissonance.
Obscureviolence – “Pulse of Subconscious Cruelty”
The third single from the band’s forthcoming EP Refuting the Flesh (2/14/25). Imagine if someone spilled weird, cryptic black metal all over your Morbid Angel cassette.
Shrine of Denial – “Climbing Through Nothingness”
Arriving March 7th, I, Moloch is sure to turn heads. Not as dense as countrymates Serpent of Old, Shrine of Denial evokes a similarly malodorous atmosphere.
Crown of Madness – “Ashes of Mine”
The game within the game. The last few tracks have been building to this disso-death. For fans of Ulcerate and Devenial Verdict. Album out February 28!
Mors Verum – “Bloodied Teeth”
Notably featuring members of Ischemic and Æpoch, this is the proggier, spacier, more psychedelic side of dissonant death metal. Hans rec’d this band many years ago.
Hexrot – “Heavenward”
We’re in the home stretch, and I’m starting to blackout, but I think fans of Sunless will dig whatever Hexrot is conjuring. “I’m losing my perspicacity!”
Perishing – “Castle of the Leached Body”
Costa Rican death metal royalty from dudes in Astriferous and Mortual playing a morbidly magmatic and insidiously igneous chugged-out death/doom. Xibalba’s “El abismo” comes to mind.
Dwelling Below – “Wearisome Guardians”
Vocalist/drummer Jared Moran plays in more bands than I’ve listened to in my life. This is 13 minutes of sounding the end-time alarm. Skittering, funereal, resigned.
Felgrave – “Pale Flowers Under an Empty Sky”
I’m positive CVSPE was listening to this unholy, nigh-irreconcilable amalgamation of neuron-collapsing avant-garde death metal when designing this year’s Sampler’s artwork. What is happening to me!
Misanthropæ – “Enshrined”
Suffering Hour’s Dwell comes to mind but with more gnarled black metal. Think Kvadrat or Serpent Column. The riff at 6:00 rendered me catatonic. I’m unconscious.
Pillar of Light – “Certain End”
Pillar of Light’s 2024 Caldera is a towering achievement that will, like the works of Amenra, Cult of Luna, and Neurosis, stand the test of time.
2024 was perhaps an unparalleled achievement
for our favourite record label.
I wouldn’t bet against Kunal to top it, though.
I beg of you, order me the tanktop or uglysleeves in the marshala colourway.
Make sure to spend any amount of dough on the sampler
as all proceeds go to the animal sanctuary TO helps operate.
