The full nine-track Usurped album by Italian groove/death metal band OBBROBRIUS is available to stream on YouTube. Released November 6 through Over The Border Records, the approximately half-hour full-length is out now digitally and as a four-panel digipak CD.
The announcement describes a rhythmic approach that allows grooves to break into death metal outbursts. Pantera and Lamb of God provide its groove reference points, while Benediction, Bolt Thrower and Malevolent Creation are cited as recommendations for listeners approaching the album.
Mental distress connects the record’s songs, drawing on true crime, post-apocalyptic cinema, the Covid-19 pandemic and horror literature. “Blood In My Eyes” addresses difficulty managing anger; “Chronic Sickness” examines distress spread through television news during the pandemic; and “Leviathan’s Cage” depicts monsters embodying nightmares.
The announcement also outlines the supernatural framework behind those themes. Rather than locating control solely in concentrated earthly wealth and political power, as its comparison with thrash metal and hardcore describes, OBBROBRIUS’ lyrics present distress and enslavement as elements of a divine plan. Guardians of the Great Forces appear through Yog Sothoth in “All In One And One In All,” while “As Angels Fall” brings dark armies into that account.
OBBROBRIUS comprise Shouter on vocals, Johnny Hell and Hellkymic Frenk on guitars, Dave Filth on bass, and Metfrey on drums. The release announcement highlights the interplay of vocals, guitars, prominent bass and technical drumming in the album’s changing dynamics.
Comet Broadcasting Studio handled recording, mixing and mastering. OBBROBRIUS wrote the music and lyrics, Davide “Dartworks” Mancini created the album cover and layout, and Guglielmo Ciccone supplied the band photography.
Usurped follows the independently released 2024 full-length Daisy’s Creepy Tales. The new album’s digital stream and download options are accompanied by physical ordering through the label shop and the label’s Bandcamp page.
- Leviathan’s Cage
- Demoniac Illusion
- Blood In My Eyes
- As Angels Fall
- Chronic Sickness
- Infecting The Holy Ground
- My Dismembered Soul
- All In One And One In All
- Usurped
