In the years since they took the world of progressive metal by storm with Portal of I, and with each subsequent record, Ne Obliviscaris have been hard at work refining their craft. Comparisons to Opeth and Agalloch were bound to happen, as NeO share an uncanny ability to balance maximalism with carefully-wrought detail, as well as a gimmick that isn’t a gimmick at all, but a vital component of their musical personality. For Opeth, it was their at-the-time revolutionary appropriation of acoustic playing and proggy singing in the context of death metal. For Agalloch, it was the fusion of black metal and folk, as well as a pagan lyrical angle that was all the more surprising for the fact that Agalloch didn’t hail from Norway or Sweden, but Oregon. And for Ne Obliviscaris, a progressive death metal band from Australia, it’s the fully-integrated electric violin that’s turned heads in their direction.
Like their closest stylistic companions, Ne Obliviscaris are restless songwriters, continually refining their craft and finding new avenues to explore their muses. They’re a little more heart-on-sleeve than your usual progressive metal band and are in love with ostentatious song titles (“Tapestry of the Starless Abstract,” “And Plague Flowers the Kaleidoscope,” “Painters of the Tempest,” and “Devour Me, Colossus” are just some of the inscrutable phrases you’ll encounter in their back catalogue), but you can handily track Ne Obliviscaris’s evolution by glancing at their album covers. Portal of I was over an hour’s exploration of the concept of identity, fittingly enough for a debut record, and covered so much ground that the band are still working well within its sandbox. Citadel pared the runtime and tracklist down a bit, and saw the band cementing themselves, creatively and critically, as the ranking progressive metal institution. Relatively speaking, it shows restraint where the band was given to excess, but it’s still an enormous record by any ruler, replete with messy lyrical parallels between art and divinity.
In this company, Urn is effectively their “smallest” and most accessible record to date. It’s six songs, just like Citadel, but the runtimes are a hair less indulgent, and the band’s sonic hallmarks are trimmed, tucked, and cinched in for an altogether sleeker listening experience than what its predecessors offer. Portal of I may contain some of their most breathtaking songs, but it’s a bumpy, peaks-and-valleys ride, often given to indulgent spotlighting; Citadel is more consistent, but it’s dense and overwhelming, with few moments of respite and a case of slight overproduction, too. Urn goes a long way in mitigating these weaknesses, working best as a continuous piece--something no other Ne Obliviscaris record can boast with such confidence--but sacrifices some dramatic momentum on a song-to-song basis. It would be flat-out wrong to say every track sounds the same when “Eyrie” and the two-part title track sit shoulder-to-shoulder, but no song sinks its hooks as quickly or as deeply as “Forget Not” or “Painters of the Tempest (Part II): Triptych Lux,” requiring a couple of attentive playthroughs for something to catch on.
But once it does, Urn reveals itself to be just as worthwhile as anything the band have released yet. The lack of inter-song (and, sometimes, intra-song) contrast isn’t as much of a problem as it seems initially, because what they lose in moments, they gain in wholes. Ne Obliviscaris have never been afraid of playing up to and past the ten-minute mark, and Urn sees their songwriting finally matching their ambitions. See “Libera (Part I): Saturnine Spheres.” Had it appeared on an earlier record, its huge climax would probably have been the song’s de facto state, overshadowed by three or four other attempts, within the same song, to match its power. On previous efforts like “Of the Leper Butterflies” and “Pyrrhic,” the band seemed hellbent on cramming an album’s worth of material into a song, which provides its own thrill and plenty of jaw-dropping moments, but an album of such songs can quickly become exhausting, as Portal of I amply demonstrates; more a collection of awesome moments than a cohesive unit. Urn sees NeO shifting their focus to the long game, and benefitting. Rather than partitioning the album into suites a la Citadel, Urn works in successive chapters, buttressed by a clear thematic preoccupation with fire: “Saturnine Spheres” sparks and explodes, while “Ascent of Burning Moths” functions as a sort of smoldering afterglow and transition into the solemn coals of “Intra Venus.” “Eyrie,” the album’s ostensible centerpiece, recalls Portal of I’s “Forget Not” with its aching violin introduction and stately progression, filtering that song’s emotional catharsis through the enlarged technical palette of “Devour Me, Colossus.” It’s testament to Ne Obliviscaris, then, that the two-part “Urn” instantly overshadows it with their most remorseless plunge into the band’s death metal influences yet, ending on a note of ominous uncertainty. You can smell Rome burning by the end of “Urn (Part II): As Embers Dance in Our Eyes.”
It hardly matters that the band, as individual musicians, have haven’t really changed since they hit the scene. Strictly speaking, there are no curveballs on Urn: the vocals maintain an even split between slightly nasal, vaguely operatic singing and reasonably deep, somewhat monotone death growls; the guitarwork remains melodically complex and shreddy; the rhythm section steady and powerful, if somewhat unremarkable, tasked with keeping the music in check and little more. Ne Obliviscaris arrived fully-formed, aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and with the goal to simply refine as much as possible. The only element that’s seen substantial change is the violin, which, on previous records, could be described as operating on top of the music, but which now works within it, weaving in and out. On Urn, it loses its novelty, but it’s for the better, allowing us to finally see how Ne Obliviscaris function as a band, rather than a band with a violinist--and it turns out, they’re just as great as we thought.
-Brian L.
Like their closest stylistic companions, Ne Obliviscaris are restless songwriters, continually refining their craft and finding new avenues to explore their muses. They’re a little more heart-on-sleeve than your usual progressive metal band and are in love with ostentatious song titles (“Tapestry of the Starless Abstract,” “And Plague Flowers the Kaleidoscope,” “Painters of the Tempest,” and “Devour Me, Colossus” are just some of the inscrutable phrases you’ll encounter in their back catalogue), but you can handily track Ne Obliviscaris’s evolution by glancing at their album covers. Portal of I was over an hour’s exploration of the concept of identity, fittingly enough for a debut record, and covered so much ground that the band are still working well within its sandbox. Citadel pared the runtime and tracklist down a bit, and saw the band cementing themselves, creatively and critically, as the ranking progressive metal institution. Relatively speaking, it shows restraint where the band was given to excess, but it’s still an enormous record by any ruler, replete with messy lyrical parallels between art and divinity.
In this company, Urn is effectively their “smallest” and most accessible record to date. It’s six songs, just like Citadel, but the runtimes are a hair less indulgent, and the band’s sonic hallmarks are trimmed, tucked, and cinched in for an altogether sleeker listening experience than what its predecessors offer. Portal of I may contain some of their most breathtaking songs, but it’s a bumpy, peaks-and-valleys ride, often given to indulgent spotlighting; Citadel is more consistent, but it’s dense and overwhelming, with few moments of respite and a case of slight overproduction, too. Urn goes a long way in mitigating these weaknesses, working best as a continuous piece--something no other Ne Obliviscaris record can boast with such confidence--but sacrifices some dramatic momentum on a song-to-song basis. It would be flat-out wrong to say every track sounds the same when “Eyrie” and the two-part title track sit shoulder-to-shoulder, but no song sinks its hooks as quickly or as deeply as “Forget Not” or “Painters of the Tempest (Part II): Triptych Lux,” requiring a couple of attentive playthroughs for something to catch on.
But once it does, Urn reveals itself to be just as worthwhile as anything the band have released yet. The lack of inter-song (and, sometimes, intra-song) contrast isn’t as much of a problem as it seems initially, because what they lose in moments, they gain in wholes. Ne Obliviscaris have never been afraid of playing up to and past the ten-minute mark, and Urn sees their songwriting finally matching their ambitions. See “Libera (Part I): Saturnine Spheres.” Had it appeared on an earlier record, its huge climax would probably have been the song’s de facto state, overshadowed by three or four other attempts, within the same song, to match its power. On previous efforts like “Of the Leper Butterflies” and “Pyrrhic,” the band seemed hellbent on cramming an album’s worth of material into a song, which provides its own thrill and plenty of jaw-dropping moments, but an album of such songs can quickly become exhausting, as Portal of I amply demonstrates; more a collection of awesome moments than a cohesive unit. Urn sees NeO shifting their focus to the long game, and benefitting. Rather than partitioning the album into suites a la Citadel, Urn works in successive chapters, buttressed by a clear thematic preoccupation with fire: “Saturnine Spheres” sparks and explodes, while “Ascent of Burning Moths” functions as a sort of smoldering afterglow and transition into the solemn coals of “Intra Venus.” “Eyrie,” the album’s ostensible centerpiece, recalls Portal of I’s “Forget Not” with its aching violin introduction and stately progression, filtering that song’s emotional catharsis through the enlarged technical palette of “Devour Me, Colossus.” It’s testament to Ne Obliviscaris, then, that the two-part “Urn” instantly overshadows it with their most remorseless plunge into the band’s death metal influences yet, ending on a note of ominous uncertainty. You can smell Rome burning by the end of “Urn (Part II): As Embers Dance in Our Eyes.”
It hardly matters that the band, as individual musicians, have haven’t really changed since they hit the scene. Strictly speaking, there are no curveballs on Urn: the vocals maintain an even split between slightly nasal, vaguely operatic singing and reasonably deep, somewhat monotone death growls; the guitarwork remains melodically complex and shreddy; the rhythm section steady and powerful, if somewhat unremarkable, tasked with keeping the music in check and little more. Ne Obliviscaris arrived fully-formed, aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and with the goal to simply refine as much as possible. The only element that’s seen substantial change is the violin, which, on previous records, could be described as operating on top of the music, but which now works within it, weaving in and out. On Urn, it loses its novelty, but it’s for the better, allowing us to finally see how Ne Obliviscaris function as a band, rather than a band with a violinist--and it turns out, they’re just as great as we thought.
-Brian L.
Archival details
- Original URL
- https://metallifestyle.weebly.com/metal-lifestyle/review-ne-obliviscaris-urn
- Recovery source
- live-weebly
- Recovery date
- 2026-07-22
- Stewardship polish
- 2026-07-22
- Preservation status
- restored
- Missing assets
- None recorded
Preserved by Bloodsoaked Media · The Archives