Slowly We Rot by Obituary
February 21, 2007 by Jo Minor
I walked into my neighborhood Rock Corner and got myself Obituary’s classic Slowly We Rot and Cause Of Death albums as celebratory purchases - signaling the end of my poor days as a student who couldn’t afford to buy CDs as often as I wanted to.
Although I’m familiar with the music of this pioneering Death Metal band from Florida, I have never gotten my hands on their CDs. I’ve heard about the band and their music, their undeniable influence over the hordes of American Death Metal bands and the amazing artwork on their albums - and now I have in my hands their first two studio albums.
Released by Roadrunner Records, Slowly We rot first saw the light of day in 1989 and was re-released in 1997 with demo versions of Find The Arise and Like The Dead. Before we get deeper into the minds and the music of the Obies, let me tell you that the cover for Slowly We Rot is simply magnificent - this is a cover on the same level as the artwork on Iron Maiden’s masterpiece Killers album. The simplicity and comic book feel of the cover - and the rawness of it all - will remind one of zombie and slasher flicks of the 80s.
Being the band’s studio debut, this release caught the attention of the media as well as the masses - Slowly We Rot marked the forced entry into the homes of thousands of people around the world. When Ozzy Osbourne first heard the two tracks of the album on tape, he went “They’re fucking mad!”
The sheer brutality and rawness of John Tardy’s guttural screams, alongside the guitar screeches of Allen West and Trevor Peres - topped with the drum battery of John’s brother Donald - was intense, brutal - and was unbridled violence on tape.
18 years later, and the band is still shattering eardrums and damaging speakers around the world. Obituary carved a name for themselves with this release and the other albums that followed - and have proven to the world that Death Metal, and other genres of metal, have no concept of rules and regulations.
Obituary have marked their territory with this release - alongside the other names of the Florida Death Metal scene like Morbid Angel, Nocturnus, Massacre, Malevolent Creation, Deicide, Atheist and Death; and have more than held their own against the names mentioned earlier.
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