The subliminal undertones spread across this miasma of noise and blackened funeral drudge is enough to send even the most stable mind into convulsions. A heavy load of fuzz and static drenched guitars creep across the outer layers but underneath the harshness lays a foreboding post-apocalyptic nihilist's utopia of lingering burnt out bomb shelters and blasted out monuments to mankind's folly. The fog of war blows gently across a vast landscape, leaving the listener to stare into the distance for half an hour, soak in the radiation, and melt away.
To order email: Orion_metalhead@hotmail.com
CTP - 002 - I (QTY = 100 Copies) $4.00
I realize that it can be expensive for me to ship product overseas so if you are from the UK or Europe, you can email Kieran from Slaney Records who will be distributing my releases in the EU. He is in the middle of getting his website up but interested parties can email me to get his email address until I can link to his distro. Additionally you can pick up the Maximum Oversatan demo from him as well.
REVIEWS
03/14/2012 - Metal Archives - Zodijackyl
Diseased Oblivion assemble an interesting mix of harsh dark ambient noise and blackish metal. The first two tracks have more harsh ambience, while the latter tracks (recorded in earlier years) have a doomier feel. Throughout, it's quite raw and rough, though appropriately so.
The first two tracks weave in and out of reverberated mechanical noises and black metal segments. On their own they're good for what they are, but they feel disjointed when it shifts from one style to another. The noise builds a great atmosphere, but it's uncomfortably pieced with sections of music that feel like tangents in the longer piece.
The funeral trudge of "Ghosts Of Nuclear Winter" grinds on as industrial noises and deep sirens are layered over it, building up from one piece to a thick layer of distorted sounds. The doomy atmosphere is certainly the band's strength, maintaining and increasing it from minimal to heavily layered instrumentation.
The production fits the music throughout - quite noisy and rough most of the time, but that's good for this. The songwriting is really stretched for the longer tracks, and the noise is better paired with rather than separated from the traditional instrumentation.
I realize it's only a demo, but it feels incomplete in places. Strengths and weaknesses show, the band could improve with stronger songwriting and embracing the blackened doom thing they have going, or they could drift into oblivion with the lengthy noisy tracks. The first two tracks were recorded in 2011, the third in 2010, and the fourth in 2009. Take the portal to the past.
05/03/2012 - Metal Archives - Rotting_Christ_Mike
The name of the band instantly grabbed my attention and after reading the genre which they play, I thought that I should definitely check out their music. What better way than listening to their recent demo? I quickly snagged a copy of this and what came out of my stereo was exactly what I expected when I saw the album cover.
There is this futuristic feel to the music, but the future seems rather desolate and empty. 'The Unquenchable Hurt ' starts off with a relatively long intro, which is really haunting and not boring at all. Once the drums kick in, the beast is unleashed. Slow, doomy riffs and rock-solid drum beats drive the song and start off what appears to be an excellent demo by this relatively new band. The noise samples which appear frequently are the cherry on top of this delicious piece of music. I must say that I notice a difference between the first two tracks and the last two tracks. As noted on the cover of CD, these songs were written at different points of time, which explains the stylistic changes. The most recent tracks, the first two, are more riff-based while still retaining the doomy atmosphere and mechanical feel of the two earlier tracks which are more ambient/noise driven.
Although there are some stylistic variations within the demo, and although at times it can feel a bit disjointed, this makes for a rather interesting listen and I enjoy both styles equally. That means that whichever of the two approaches the band takes with its future releases, I will be pleased. The major advantages of the demo is the noisy production (which suits the music perfectly) and the intense atmosphere which is emphasized by the droning nature of the music. Special mention goes to the perfectly placed noise samples/ambient passages, the solid riffs and the skillful drumming.
I'm pretty sure that many people are bound to find the sound of Diseased Oblivion really great and I can see a bright future ahead of the guys. All I can say to the band is to keep up the good work, and consider me a fan.
06/28/2012 - Metal Core Webzine
All this was to me was a bunch of senseless guitar and keyboard parts that sounded like a storm was approaching. It is one riff repeated over and over with some guy just growling very low into a mic saying nothing every now and then. It sounds like a thunderstorm to me with the vocals being the lighting. To me this isn’t even music and I can’t see how anybody would even like this at all. This I can say is the worst black metal shit I have ever heard in my 25 years of reviewing metal.
09/17/2012 - Aristocrazia Webzine (Translation avilable on site)
A molti lettori il monicker Diseased Oblivion potrebbe risultare pressochè sconosciuto: il duo statunitense composto da Drew e Styv è di relativa recente formazione (2009) e ha all'attivo una discografia rappresentata da quattro split, una compilation e il demo di cui mi accingo a parlarvi. Styv, però, è un artista già comparso sulle nostre pagine: egli è, infatti, il mastermind del progetto Reclusa al cui riguardo, nell'anno passato, ebbi il piacere di scrivere in occasione dell'uscita del debutto,.
Ciò che i Diseased Oblivion propongono in "Portals Of Past And Present" non si distacca di molto, a livello concettuale, dall'intransigenza morbosa e pachidermica che già riscontrai nel disco poc'anzi richiamato.
"Unquenchable Hurt" e "Reclusa Eternus" sono pezzi costruiti su fitte atmosfere droniche dai tratti desolanti e quasi meccanici a cui viene aggiunto un riffing intenso e frequentemente al limite con il Doom; la combinazione di tali fattori innalza un'impenetrabile barriera catacombale, la quale viene anche sormontata da una coltre profondamente e claustrofobicamente oscura.
Non esiste alcun occhio di riguardo nei confronti dell'accessibilità all'ascolto, non vi sono compromessi e la macchina Diseased Oblivion ha come unico obbiettivo quello di stritolare e annerire ogni residuo di umanità.
La dimostrazione lampante della succitata volontà decostruttrice ci perviene da "Blackhole Funeral III" e "Ghosts Of Nuclear Winter" che potremmo semplicisticamente immaginare come vortici infidi ed avvolgenti di progressioni rumoristiche, riverberi industriali e chitarre dilanianti che stringono inevitabilmente in una morsa gelida ed incorruttibile.
La voce effettata di Styv (che, per rendere l'idea, più che una voce pare molto più simile ad una eco dagli Inferi) contribuisce notevolmente a rendere ancora più asettica e maligna quella tensione vibrante di alienante insania che emerge durante l'ascolto.
Ai fini della mia analisi non è utile mettersi a dissertare sulla scena Black Metal americana (o, se preferite, USBM) in quanto Diseased Oblivion non è ascrivibile a tale corrente; certo, la provenienza è quella ma le composizioni del duo si distaccano da tale ambito e vanno a collocarsi in una dimensione isolata, generata unicamente da una folle ed inumana agonia.
I portali del passato e del presente sono aperti e i peggiori incubi che vi erano rinchiusi stanno sorgendo: ci condurranno in un futuro in cui rimpiangeremo ciò che ora riteniamo doloroso perchè, a quel punto, le nostre attuali sofferenze saranno gioiose delizie estatiche.
10/10/2012 - Destructive Music
“Portals of Past & Present” is the debut demo release from American Black/ Doom Metal band DISEASED OBLIVION! Despite being the bands debut demo, “Portals of Past & Present” actually follows up from three split releases as well as a compilation, so the band have been busy since their 2009 inception.
Starting this four track and nearly thirty minute demo under way is “The Unquenchable Hurt” which begins slowly, with an Industrial sounding repetitive noise, rolling over and over you in waves! Spikes of deafening, silence piercing noise hit with deadly accuracy, menacing you for what seems like an age before finally the slow, methodical drum beats march onto the scene and the death like growl from the vocalist rumbles forth from the bowels of an excessively dark and sinister sounding abyss! Slowly and in a manner that can only be described as calculating the music picks up, struggling and wriggling free of this oppressive atmosphere with which Diseased Oblivion are the creator! As more time passes the vitriolic moods and the angst ridden emotions are slowly, painstakingly slowly, released in a slow motion eruption of bile, sweat, regret and bitterness!
“Black Funeral III – The Vacant Earth” brings a semblance or normality to the bands sound with more methodical beats, a steady but ruthless style and a venomous edge to their play! “Ghosts of Nuclear Winter” re-introduces the cold chaotic noise that Diseased Oblivion utilize so effectively, almost like they are building a wall of evil and harmful sound effects to keep everyone out whilst the finale track “Reclusa Eternus” brings the bands fevered and unpredictable Doom element into play once more, entwined as it is with the bands cold hard steel of their Raw Black Metal core sound!
Malevolent, the word that bests describes this demo, but ever so effective! [8/10 - LUKE HAYHURST]
11/27/2012 - Goul's Grypt
From the dismal darkness of some obscure, long forgotten chasm in the depths of the earth came Diseased Oblivion in 2009. With them the duo brought ominous duo brought several incantations of enigmatic, arcane droning metal in the forms of black- and funeral doom metal. The sixth incarnation of Diseased Oblivion's music is found on the 4-track demo from 2012 entitled "Portals of Past and Present", which features songs from the very initiation of Diseased Oblivion in 2009 to some of their newer material from 2011.
The four tracks on Portals of Past and Present feature everything you could expect from a band of this type: Winter-like funeral soundscapes, eerie black abysses and abstruse ambience from the vastness of space. By pairing highly distorted guitars with profoundly cryptic noises the band achieve the bizarre atmospheres that their songtitles such as "Ghosts of Nuclear Winter" and "Blackhole Funeral III" paved the way for in the mind of listeners, and throughout the retrospective experience of Portals of Past and Present does indeed see an interesting evolution in the band's sound.
As we progress back in time through the increasingly eerie, murky waters that are the sounds of Diseased Oblivion, the imposing blackened doom tracks grow ever more filthy, tenebrous and oddly threatening from the newest track "Unquenchable Hurt" through Blackhole Funeral III and Ghosts of Nuclear Winter and ultimately coming to a grinding, funeral-like halt with the death/doom-ish Reclusa Eternus, which is also the oldest song on the demo.
I recon that Diseased Oblivion are succesful in creating effectively mind-invading black-laden doom metal. The demo gives a fulfilling look into the still short career of the american duo and their compelling but very traditional take on the genre, but through competent songwriting (if their is such a thing in funeral doom metal) they manage to keep their music, all 3 years of it, convincingly decent to make it worth listening to. 7/10 guitars.
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