[Artwork by Rudi Yanto]
By most measures, Stabbing’s second album, Eon of Obscenity, is good. In a way, it is certainly more successful than its predecessor, 2022’s Extirpated Mortal Process, the Texas brutal death metal band’s breakout full-length debut. The musicianship is tighter. The songwriting is leaner. The production is more explosive. And Bridget Lynch has upgraded her guttural game, becoming one of the style’s premier vocalists. Given those arena-grade patch upgrades, it’s also no small feat that Stabbing has been able to retain its authentically aggressive approach even after signing to Century Media, a more sales-focused label that hasn’t pressed CDs of a band this brutal since ’90s Cryptopsy.
The newish rhythm section of Matt Day (bass) and Aron Hetsko (drums) really excels in that regard, actualizing Stabbing’s prior brutal death metal aspirations. The virtuosity is impressive, particularly when it comes to giving the mid-paced sections a frictionless lift that makes them feel like you’re riding in a hovercraft. But Day and Hetsko aren’t alone in Stabbing’s amelioration. Credit goes to the OGs. Guitarist Marvin Ruiz has a firm handle on meat-rending riffage and lens-flare wee-woos. And Lynch displays so much more versatility than was previously in her bag, strengthening the growls while also nailing Glen Benton-esque demonic high/low harmonies (blarghonies?). Plus, it has to be mentioned: She has developed one of the better Yautja noises this side of Paulo Henri Paguntalan. In sum, it’s undeniably solid stuff.
And yet, even adding up all of those superlatives, Eon of Obscenity just sort of…is. Put more clearly, the album is indistinct. You bet, it’s loaded with virtues and stray [Unreal Tournament voice] killing spree moments. Nevertheless, it rarely rises to the realm of great, seldom mounting much of a case to prioritize it over any of the great brutal death metal albums of the last few years. In that sense, Eon of Obscenity‘s inability to separate itself from the pack is as if the talent-heavy Los Angeles Dodgers went .500 next season. Oh, sure, Eon of Obscenity is good…in a vacuum. I think it will impress a lot of people who are previously unfamiliar with BDM — Stabbing is a fine ambassador, too. But while it’s loaded with potential, its actual output in the BDM league is just a tick above replacement level.
Of course, that’s not really Stabbing’s fault. Again, it executes its sound, which can be fairly described as Disgorge Tex, well. However, modern brutal death metal has been moving at lightspeed lately. Each new solstice brings an album that is heavier, crazier, and more challenging than the previously acknowledged acme of the style. These x-squared releases aren’t solely coming from young guns, either. Defeated Sanity, Cenotaph, Cerebral Effusion, and on and on have continued to progress while emphasizing their sounds and enlarging their presences. Heck, even fellow Texans Devourment — a band that, coincidentally, has had Stabbing guitarist Marvin Ruiz in its ranks since 2023 — bested its classics with 2019’s Obscene Majesty, a pinnacle of putridity that dimed all of the Devourment dials with a send-it savagery. It is Devourment, through and through, just sort of…more.
Now, Stabbing didn’t need to be more. It wasn’t required to dramatically level up on Eon of Obscenity. As previously stated, in many ways, it has. But briefly recapping brutal death metal’s faster-than-a-fruit-fly evolution does explain why, if you’ve been embedded in the scene for a bit, the album might not hit. It’s good, but, at a base level, it’s just another solid set of songs swimming around in a sea of goo. BDM is a buyer’s market right now. And yes, you get the feeling that Stabbing will crush all of these songs live. It has burnished its reputation by owning every stage, even when partnered up with bands decades its elder. To that end, you can hear how Stabbing has engineered Eon of Obscenity to be a memorable live experience, finding a mosh-friendly flow that trades between fast blasts and last-chance-to-dance juds. Based on that alone, this album signals that Stabbing is a headliner. Then again, it’s way too early in its career to be releasing supremely competent tour announcements that don’t rock the boat.
That’s the other thing. Stabbing, the headliner, is now flexing a kind of confidence that sets up a fascinating conundrum. On the one hand, its elevated abilities allow it to make good on its ambitions — there’s no way old Stabbing is pulling off the Disentomb-y flourishes of “Ruminations.” On the other hand, Eon of Obscenity‘s professionalism diminishes the ragtag charm Stabbing displayed on Extirpated Mortal Process. There was more tension in that album’s ramshackle approach, which made the music sound more chaotic and, by extension, more kinetic. It gave Stabbing an edge. Eon of Obscenity, when compared to all of the other knives in the brutal death metal drawer, isn’t sharp enough. It doesn’t slice through the last 10 years of exponentially escalating excellence. The fact that Stabbing can craft a tune isn’t notable if the song, compared to its peers’, is competent at best.
Ah, but does that matter? Ultimately, your reaction to Eon of Obscenity will depend on your approach to weighing the qualitative value of an album. If you’re a Pauline Kael type who takes every album on its own merits, Eon of Obscenity bangs. If you only care if riffs rip, Eon of Obscenity rips. However, if you have a hard time separating albums from their substyle ecosystems, not to mention your own experience within those ecosystems, Eon of Obscenity is unremarkable. It suffers from proximity — the Volkswagen Golf on a lot full of Porsches, a person maxing 225 on the bench in a gym full of Arnold Strongman Classic competitors. Once Eon of Obscenity is removed from a vacuum and returned to circulation, it just sort of…is. Agreed, by most measures, it is a good album. It’s indisputably successful as a personal best. But when it’s measured against the cream of the scene, Eon of Obscenity doesn’t rise alongside them.
And that wraps up the most cognitively dissonant pan of all time.
