Ageless Oblivion: The Beast Has Awoken
Flash back to 2014 and the UK metal scene was in a very different state to the thriving eco-system it is today. Sure, there was a crop of quality bands, a nicely stacked lineup of summer festivals and venues up and down the country kept the scene ticking along. But, flash-forward to 2021 and despite the turmoil of the COVID-19 year of 2020, the UK metal scene is arguably the strongest it has ever been. But, as we rewind the clock back those seven years, UK bruisers AGELESS OBLIVION had just released their crushing second offering; Penthos. An amalgamation of raw and visceral death metal and progressive/technical leanings, the band looked set to become a driving force as UK metal looked to begin it’s explosive growth.
But, life is full of many surprises and after a period of dormancy, AGELESS OBLIVION have returned. The beast has awoken and as the band reflect on the time spent in the wilderness, quitting was never an option.
“I’ll begin by saying that the length of time between albums is something we do regret, but can promise it wasn’t due to a lack of trying. There are a few things I could point to as to why it took so long (such as multiple line-up changes). However, the main reasons are; that some of our personal lives took a bit of a hit for a while, it generally takes us a long time to write music we’re one-hundred percent happy with, and we ended up losing a year to the pandemic. It really was a perfect storm that just worked to hinder us for a while. Quitting or giving up was never an option though.”
This determination and drive to never give in despite the adversities faced bleeds seamlessly into the band’s monolithic third offering; Suspended Between Earth and Sky. An ode to the age of hopelessness we find ourselves in, the record ebbs and flows from technical wizardry to movements of sheer explosive power. It’s a devastatingly heavy record and given it’s themes, the timing of releasing during a pandemic and subsequent global lockdown feels like a match made in heaven. “The core theme of the album is to do with our overlooked frailty as a species, and how it doesn’t really take much for nature to show us who’s boss every so often. In the album’s case, it’s a volcanic winter that works to remind us of this fact, in the real world it is obviously the pandemic. Human misery is something we try to bring into focus whenever we write music for AGELESS OBLIVION. I think the fact that we were stuck for so long, and had our own personal problems were the main reasons the album sounds the way it does and works at encapsulating the anxiety of the last year or so.”
Encapsulating the anxiety of the last year is exactly what Suspended Between Earth and Sky does and largely, this is down to the simple fact that the record feels real. It’s unpredictable, organic and at its core; it is real. Whilst technical-leaning death metal has continued to boom and grow, the focus for a lot of bands is more towards razor-sharp precision rather than building a true connection for the listener. This is something AGELESS OBLIVION take in their stride and it’s a core pillar of their ethos. “We’ve always been drawn to music that sounds ‘human’. Music is an emotional art form after all, and by making everything absurdly tight and compressed, it quickly loses that emotional aspect, that human aspect. Our intention with this album was to express ourselves in the realest way we could, and for that to happen it had to be us playing. It’s a balancing act really, the music calls for a level tightness of course, but had we got lost in that we’d be moving away from it being ‘us’. Atmosphere and feeling were a thousand percent more important than absolute precision with this album.”
Back with an almighty bang, the return of AGELESS OBLIVION is something to be celebrated. Had the band packed it in following Penthos, it would be have been a damn shame to lose such a wicked talent. The pandemic has brought wave and wave of misery but the downtime of the lost year of 2020 has allowed the band to be reborn with the fires of the apocalypse. And as they return to a death metal world that has grown and exploded, thanks to the full-throttle revival of the old school death metal movement, as well as the sustained popularity of progressive leaning death metal, the timing could never have been more perfect.
“I think the success of new albums from bands such as NERO DI MARTE and ULCERATE could be a sign that the timing might bode well for us given the style of music, but it’s hard to say. We’ve always felt a little bit like outsiders in the death metal world. We’re not as overtly old school as some of the newer bands making the rounds at the moment, and this album has way less in common with the tech death scene compared to Penthos, so I guess we’ll see!”
Suspended Between Earth and Sky is out now via Apocalyptic Witchcraft.
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