Obfuscation of Hideous Ego glares red on the radar. One of those predatory demos. This one came out last night, while you were sleeping, but it’s been stalking the underground for several weeks now. And even at ⅓ its strength, the demo cast a foreboding shadow. This three-headed spawn of dark allegiance between otherwise opposing forces comes unleashed upon the world by two Florida men. One Evan on drums and vocals. One Emilio on guitar and bass.
We spoke with Evan, who told us:
“Blood Ouroboros was formed in 2018 between Emilio and [myself] in the midst of [us] being between projects and neither of us having an outlet to play exceedingly fast death metal mixed with black metal. He had been sitting on some riff ideas for awhile and was getting frustrated not being able to use them and approached me about getting something together and here we are! We recently added our good buddy Tommy as a bassist/vocalist for playing our upcoming live shows and as a permanent member overall as well.”
Obfuscation of Hideous Ego
Evan goes on to explain Blood Ouroboros’ history. “Emilio and I were previously in a death/grind band called Tyrants of Hell,” he says. Check your tape collection. Diehards should own three tapes at least. Evan goes on to mention that he and Emilio “are currently in a black/thrash band called Graven Hag with [their] buddy Eli.” Evan also adds that “Emilio plays with in a pretty sick heavy metal band called SHOT,” and he “also drum[s] in the USBM band Black Ejaculate.”
According to Evan, how Blood Ouroboros came together to make their pitch black death “is actually somewhat of a hard question to answer.” He says, “Emilio and I, save for a few stalwarts and random bands, generally have very different tastes. I am a black metal guy through and through, I truly do not really listen to much death metal on my own time. On the other hand, Emilio happens to loathe black metal and listens to mainly death metal. Despite these differences, the chemistry the two of us have regarding songwriting for this band is the best I’ve experienced in my personal music career. When we first got the band together, the riffs started out . . . tremolo-heavy, death metal more in the vein of Gorguts or even Suffocation as that’s Emilio’s bread and butter but that quickly evolved.
“It wasn’t really until we started jamming that the melding of our two influences started to happen. You mentioned Antediluvian as a possible influence on this demo and that’s definitely one of the main bands we looked to when fleshing out the songs. The other big ones being the obvious legends like Incantation and Morbid Angel alongside modern masters of the genre like Vassafor, Qrixkuor, or Pneuma Hagion. But I would like to point out that above all of those, at least in my opinion as the guy behind the kit, this demo is an homage to Adversarial and their brand of absolute gut-wrenching, chaotic black/death that we strive to be. We wanted to really emphasis that linear style of songwriting by placing most of the focus on the riffs and just letting me be a constant agonizing force behind the wall of tremolo picking.
“Finally, the last tenet of our sound to address I suppose would be the melodic, traditional heavy metal sounding riffs, say for instance, at the end of ‘…And Hell,’ or in the middle triplet break of ‘Spears of Execration.’ Emilio is a rocker at heart and we couldn’t resist throwing in some riffs like that. If anyone reading this can point out the riff in the demo that was influenced by ‘Mindless Sinner,’ I’ll personally send you a free tape.”
Blood Ouroboros brooded in the darkness before it finally took the form you hear before you today. According to Evan, the demo’s “first song was written sometime in the summer of 2018 . . . The early stages of this band were, truthfully, rough for me as I was not quite at the skill level I needed to be to properly play this brand of black/death metal but I persevered. After that song was fleshed out and revised we ended up taking about a year break from the band. Not consciously and not without frustration on both of our ends trying to get it together, but other bands and life just got in the way as it tends to do.
“When we finally got the band back together in ernest and started writing again, it was smooth sailing,” says Evan. “‘And Hell…’ took probably a month or two to perfect and get the phrasing of everything worked out while ‘Spears of Execration,’ though being our favorite song on the demo, was put together in probably a week. Emilio had 5-6 riffs that just all happened to sound awesome slapped together, so fate worked with us on that one . . . We’ve known what we wanted to sound like since day one of this band and it will presumably never be any different. Although I will say I screwed up the guitar mic placement a little bit so we lost a little clarity in the low end of the guitars on the recording and I’d like to rectify that eventually.”
Evan elaborates on how he and Emilio went about recording the three songs that comprise their demo. According to Evan, Obfuscation of Hideous Ego was “recorded over a week or two in [their]practice unit.” He says, “We did drums with a live guitar that bleeds into my overhead mics because I’m an amateur and then we recorded Emilio playing along to my drum track. Guitars were recorded with a Peavey VTM 120 I believe. Bass was done direct in to a mixer a couple of days later and I recorded vocals at home. The demo would not sound as full and dynamic as it does without Andrew Lee, of Ripped to Shreds, and his mixing job. He’s mixed a couple of things for a couple of my bands and always makes my tin-can DIY recordings sound beefy and substantial.”
“The tape is coming out on Expansion Abyss and we decided to go with a no nonsense approach with the layout. You’ll get the cover art, track listing on the back and the Expansion Abyss website in the liner notes. Along with a 1.25” Button of our logo as well. This is to place emphasis on the music and not us as artists, who cares what we look like!
“I’d also like to note that working with Expansion Abyss has been one of the most genuine experiences I’ve had in releasing physical media. His communication and dedication has been more than I could ask for and I’m looking forward to releasing more music through the label.”
As for the future of Blood Ouroboros, Evan says: “We have our first live show coming up next Saturday, January 18th, which we’re very much looking forward to. We also have some songs in the works as is expected! There will absolutely be new Blood Ouroboros material in 2020. Beyond that we would love to tour, put out splits, etc so if any black/death bands are reading this, you know how to find us.”
