Dimensions Obscure

To elasticity and beyond!
dB rating: 8/10

Release Date: May 2, 2016
Label: Blood Harvest

Four years ago, Cadaveric Fumes burst onto the scene with one hell of a foreboding demo. Two years later, via a split with Demonic Oath, the French quartet put out two more wallops of down-tuned, clobbering death metal that killed too hard for anyone to worry about whether it was all derivative or not. Ergo, the future was promising and murky for Cadaveric Fumes, but no one could’ve guessed that their follow-up EP would sound like it does.

For Dimensions Obscure, Caddie Fumes traded their blunt instruments of death for alien artifacts from a time and place way far out. Talking about the 1970s—specifically, the amplifiers and pedals therein. The mausoleum-crumbling guitar distortion of the demo and split is gone, and in its place is a twangy guitar tone, like Demilich playing Fender Strats in a rautalanka band. The C-Fumes are still playing death metal; except now there are pockets of bizarre sounds compressed in their palm mutes. Now the vocals no longer gurgle like the drain pipe in the morgue of an abandoned hospital—they’re more intelligible, if not more confident.

Whatever brought on the change, it rules. With their metamorphosis comes moments like the sublime tremolo-picked part in “Extatic Extirpation,” and the ensuing groove that would make Howls of Ebb blush. Clearly, a lot of time/thought/effort went into this EP, yet the progression here feels totally natural. Without necessarily going where no death metal record has gone before, Dimensions Obscure is a modern treasure, sure to remain relevant deep into the future.

— Dutch Pearce
This review taken from the December 2016 issue.

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