Face your God

Lasting Presence

Evil Ways

Drop Dead

Bloodshot

Seal your Fate

Feel the Pain

Contrast the Dead

Second Chance

Lies

In your Head

John Tardy - Vocals

Ralph Santolla - Guitar

Frank Watkins - Bass

Donald Tardy - Drums

Trevor Peres - Guitar

OBITUARY: "Xecutioner`s  Return" obituary     Candlelight Records

Distributed in CH by Irascible

review by Gianrichy "Richy" Giamboi ___                 

Lava coming down slowly

but deathly.

This band definitively will never die! After so many albums and years on the road, they still have the strength and inner fire to make more albums and to tour again and again, wow!

As to be expected nothing really new happens on Xecutioner ‘s Return. Obituary as we are used to know and to appreciate. The sound has ‘nt changed at all since times of “The End Complete”, Jon Tardy ‘s voice still remains unique in the whole death metal world, and the guitars still have that fluid deep sound that remembers a little bit a river of lava coming down slowly but deathly from the mountain ‘s top.

The little bit of fresh air that comes is due to the new guitar player Ralf Randolla, that occupies the place of former guitarist Allen West. I think Ralf Randolla is clearly the best guitar player of the two, and this gives the compositions a little bit of technical finesse and some really good solos.  Also is to mention the surprisingly high amount of rather fast tracks. This is in my eyes a component that makes “Xecutioner ‘s Return”  pretty interesting as  some of the former records were rather boring because every song was held rather in the slow/midtempo regions.

For those who know Obituary, this is one of the best albums ever made, that in my opinion has the same quality of milestones like “Cause of Death” or “The End Complete”. For those who still don ‘t know the band (shame on you), this is a really good occasion to get in touch with Obituary, as this record is rather more “easy listening” as some of the albums that have been published in former years.

Rating: 8/10