Obituary

Formed in Tampa, Florida, in 1984, death metal pioneers Obituary have been instrumental in the development of the genre in the mid-80s. Despite having released less than a dozen albums in over 30 years of career, the band is still considered to be one of the most successful death metal acts of all time. Their lack of creative output can be attributed to multiple personnel changes (three different bass players and six guitarists) and a six-year year hiatus from recording and performing between 1997 and 2003. Three founding members of the band still remain in the line-up—rhythm guitarist Trevor Peres, drummer Donald Tardy, and his brother John who acts as frontman and vocalist. The band started out life under the name Executioner and, after renaming themselves Obituary, released their debut album Slowly We Rot in 1989, followed up by Cause of Death in 1990. Despite very limited commercial success, the two albums inspired an entire generation of heavy metal bands eager to join their new movement. Obituary reached their artistic peak in the mid-90s with the albums The End Complete (1992), World Demise (1994), and Back from the Dead (1997), which broke them to a wider audience and found them touring extensively throughout the US and Europe. Following an extended hiatus between 1997 and 2003, the group delivered one more album for Roadrunner—2005's Frozen in Time—before switching to Candlelight Records and releasing Xecutioner's Return in 2007. Darkest Day, their eighth studio album, appeared in 2009 and was followed five years later by Inked in Blood (2014), the band's first full-length to enter the Billboard 200. Released in 2017, their self-titled album fared just as well and charted in several European countries. The band toured alongside Slayer, Lamb of God, and Anthrax in support of the LP, and spent most of the COVID-19 pandemic working on a new batch of songs. Preceded by the single "The Wrong Time," their highly anticipated eleventh album Dying of Everything hit retail in January 2023.