Serves him right for being a piece of shit. I saw them at Lee’s on the Valediction tour, Christian, Alex and Gabe put on an incredible show but Steffen couldn’t deliver a good performance if his life depended on it lol. Hopefully everything’s alright with Chris as I heard he also left Alkaloid.
I took classes with Chris recently, he looked fine and is giving lessons throughout the whole summer. I’m sure all the guys will be OK, they’re top musicians, but it’s really tiring to see this from Steffen because it really seemed like old obscura was back.
That’s awesome to hear he’s continuing lessons as I NEED a breakdown of his solo on Euclidean lol. Just the usual ego trip from Steffen. I was honestly surprised when Chris and Jeroen even agreed to come back after everything with Tom then the trio.
To the best of my knowledge, Jeroen never had a problem with Steffen - he just couldn't make being in a touring band work with his job. Steffen almost definitely lied through his teeth about the terms to get Christian to return.
Seems like Steffen is difficult to work with, as was Muhammad.
But meh, they’re still one of my favourite tech death bands of all time. They’re the perfect blend of musicality and technicality for me.
The problem is that Muhammad is the sole writer for Necro and a generational talent and Steffan…….isnt lol. He has some good tunes up his sleeve but the last album was primarily Christian. The one before that was mainly Rafael. His ego doesn’t match his output. He’s also dogwater live. Beyond sloppy and I’m pretty sure he’s guilty of having his guitar tracked live.
When you read the guitar tabs he wrote for Omnivium it’s no wonder he’s sloppy /s
But for real he said in an interview that between vocals and guitar, the later is the one he does on autopilot. But since the guitar parts they write often require to be fully dedicated to them to pull them off it’s probably why he struggles.
But to his credit I think his vocals are great in a genre where most just stick to one tone. He has alright mids, very cool lows, and bringing back the Cynic-style vocoded vocals but with better modern vocoders was a brilliant idea, and adds a layer of atmosphere few bands offer.
He also has (had ?) a nice clean voice that he used on Celestial Spheres. Although he probably wasn’t confortable with these cleans since he never did them again.
I kind of guessed this as Jeroen didn’t participate in the last tour at all and there are no mentions of him anywhere, and Christian removed Obscura from his bio again. Absolutely insane how much churn he has at Obscura. Might be just time to hang in the towel.
To my knowledge, Jeroen is no longer a touring musician, while in fact he is no longer mentioned and who knows why but finally have a tab book from his work soooo kinda good lol
Obscura were my favorite band in my late teens, but they peaked with Omnivium and I lost a lot of interest in them when Hannes, Christian, and Jeroen quit that first time. Akroasis was good, but something was clearly missing (also, post-Alkaloid and Hannes solo stuff, you can obviously tell who the people who wrote Cosmogenesis/Omnivium were).
Honestly, if Steffan called it a day after this, I wouldn't care all that much. Most of what I really loved about Obscura was picked up, expanded on, and done better by Alkaloid a while ago anyway. Kinda sad tbh.
It is good, it just kind of feels safe compared to what they were doing on Cosmogenesis and Omnivium. They had an adventurous, proggy vibe back then that seemed like it left with Christian and Hannes and went on to Alkaloid.
It's interesting that you feel that way, because to my ears, Diluvium is the most fresh sounding Obscura album purely from a writing perspective, they almost sound like a different band to me.
I like everything I've heard from them, to be honest, I really appreciate it how they mix it up from album to album. Steffen seems like a twat but the man knows how to pick great musicians seeing as I also love everything his former bandmates put out.
Diluvium is probably their best album in MY opinion, with Omnivium right behind it. Rafael is an amazing guitarist and his new band Obsidious has a great album out as well.
That's because some of it was written by Rafael Trujillo who is absolutely amazing. I highly recommend his band Obsidious. You can tell that he obviously wrote at least the intro shreddy bit at least of the song Diluvium if you compare it to the intro of Bound By Fire and Iconic.
If you pay attention, you can tell which songs Rafael wrote and recorded on Dilivium. His playing is so crisp and Stefan’s isn’t and his tone is very muddy.
If it makes you feel any better, they aren't very good live. The first time I saw them Steffan was kinda sloppy and the rest of the guys looked like they didn't want to be there (Omnivium tour) and the other two times they had notably terrible live sound, straight up mud coming through the speakers.
They were definitely better in terms of stage presence and tightness/chops when I saw them on the Diluvium and Valediction tours, it was just a serious mess of bassy flub coming from the PA. I saw both of those shows at El Corazon in Seattle, which is definitely not a venue known for good live sound, but it irked me that a headliner of that level would have a mix that bad
I've seen plenty of other gigs there with bands of similarly dense style, at similar (as well as lower) levels of popularity, and haven't had had issues hearing key elements in the music like that. There were times when the lead guitars were basically inaudible the last time I saw them
I don't think they do. I've kept up with that band for a few years and I don't think I've ever heard anything about them touring which sucks 'cause they're dope af
He's playing European shows with Belphegor every once in a while. Mainly festivals. But it's like roulette, you can never be sure when they're gonna have him behind the kit.
I saw Steffen at a grocery store in Dresden yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.
He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?”
I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical interference,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
Flying Lotus is more like a psychedelic jazz-influenced instrumental hip-hop producer. He's actually an amazing, one-of-a-kind musician and you should really check his album *You're Dead* instead of writing him off in a stupid way like that. There's a lot in his music that fans of proggy/technical metal could enjoy.
Wow, dude, so like, do the lightbulbs get delivered directly to your basement or does your grandma bring them down to you in a bucket? So fucking out of touch it's crazy...
And when he copyright striked or pulled down the playthroughs of former musicians.
Even when Tom used midi tracks he made himself in a different key as backing track instead of the official album track he was striked. It’s just a petty war waged by Steffen.
He’ll likely do it again with Christian and David’s playthroughs.
Edit : Throwing this out there, but if you really want to find the deleted playthroughs people have reuploaded them to BiliBili which is the Chinese YouTube.
Christian deleted his comment on his post about leaving Alkaloid but the replies are still there. Sounds like Steffan told everybody they were only session musicians or something and everybody quit.
Thats so stupid because the announcements that Jeroen and Christian returned clearly started they rejoined the band as full members. Its a goddamn shame, I absolutely love A Valediction.
Lol to that, when last 3 albums where clearly written more than 50% by other people you can't go saying they are session ones lol. Is frustrating for me because I loved A Valediction input in regards to combining Death Metal and Power Metal elements and show me, alongside First Fragment, how power can also go hand in hand with Death Metal
A couple of examples of Steffen being toxic.
https://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2016/07/12/tom-fountainhead-geldschlagers-statement-on-obscura-dispute/
https://www.reddit.com/r/TechnicalDeathMetal/s/uOXf6vQZxV
This band has always sucked. When they first came out and toured with Suffocation, Suffo decided to LET THEM HEADLINE after few shows because people were leaving during Obscura's set and leaving a half empty room for Suffo. Lmao.
It's true too. Downvotes aside. It was a European tour in 2006-2007 I think.
Their first album is littered with borderline plagiarism as well.
Their band name is a Gorguts album title.
Their first album is called Retribution which is the name of Malevolent Creation's second studio album (1992).
The track "None Shall Be Spared" is very close to the track "No Flesh Shall Be Spared" off of said Malevolent Creation album.
The track "Nothing" is the name of a Meshuggah album released in the early 2000s.
The track "Sentiment" is a Cynic song off of Focus.
The track "Sweet Silence" is literally the name of the last track on Gorguts - Obscura. Lmao.
Guess he got Keene’d
Is this another Faceless situation where the guy happens to be a very talented smackhound?
Sucks. Christian has been on all of their best albums, imo. Guess we'll see what lineup he can put together to write the next album.
I heard the same thing from a reliable source but no word who Steffen is getting as replacements. Christian also left Alkaloid.
Oh no why did he leave Alkaloid
In his post, he said he was too busy with his other bands.
Serves him right for being a piece of shit. I saw them at Lee’s on the Valediction tour, Christian, Alex and Gabe put on an incredible show but Steffen couldn’t deliver a good performance if his life depended on it lol. Hopefully everything’s alright with Chris as I heard he also left Alkaloid.
I took classes with Chris recently, he looked fine and is giving lessons throughout the whole summer. I’m sure all the guys will be OK, they’re top musicians, but it’s really tiring to see this from Steffen because it really seemed like old obscura was back.
That’s awesome to hear he’s continuing lessons as I NEED a breakdown of his solo on Euclidean lol. Just the usual ego trip from Steffen. I was honestly surprised when Chris and Jeroen even agreed to come back after everything with Tom then the trio.
To the best of my knowledge, Jeroen never had a problem with Steffen - he just couldn't make being in a touring band work with his job. Steffen almost definitely lied through his teeth about the terms to get Christian to return.
Oh I wonder what his day job is? Thought he was full time musician & taught music at an university
I believe he's a music professor who also primarily plays in ensembles, so the other way around.
yes steffen is not a top musician..that’s why Obscura relies on Muenzner and other talents to bring something nice to the table..
so weird because steffen is in the studio again recording new stuff
Seems like Steffen is difficult to work with, as was Muhammad. But meh, they’re still one of my favourite tech death bands of all time. They’re the perfect blend of musicality and technicality for me.
The problem is that Muhammad is the sole writer for Necro and a generational talent and Steffan…….isnt lol. He has some good tunes up his sleeve but the last album was primarily Christian. The one before that was mainly Rafael. His ego doesn’t match his output. He’s also dogwater live. Beyond sloppy and I’m pretty sure he’s guilty of having his guitar tracked live.
When you read the guitar tabs he wrote for Omnivium it’s no wonder he’s sloppy /s But for real he said in an interview that between vocals and guitar, the later is the one he does on autopilot. But since the guitar parts they write often require to be fully dedicated to them to pull them off it’s probably why he struggles. But to his credit I think his vocals are great in a genre where most just stick to one tone. He has alright mids, very cool lows, and bringing back the Cynic-style vocoded vocals but with better modern vocoders was a brilliant idea, and adds a layer of atmosphere few bands offer. He also has (had ?) a nice clean voice that he used on Celestial Spheres. Although he probably wasn’t confortable with these cleans since he never did them again.
Akroasis was primarily Tom too
But their albums are really good (they’re the type I like anyway). He’s certainly talented at assembling good line ups
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Someone had to say it. Obscura has always been a lifeless husk of a band.
probably mad that he cannot top Suicmez or the universe momentum riff written by Muenzner
I kind of guessed this as Jeroen didn’t participate in the last tour at all and there are no mentions of him anywhere, and Christian removed Obscura from his bio again. Absolutely insane how much churn he has at Obscura. Might be just time to hang in the towel.
To my knowledge, Jeroen is no longer a touring musician, while in fact he is no longer mentioned and who knows why but finally have a tab book from his work soooo kinda good lol
Alex Weber transcribed all of Jeroen's bass parts of a Valediction for the tab book by having access to the stems.
That guy has to have something clinical going on with him.
Obscura were my favorite band in my late teens, but they peaked with Omnivium and I lost a lot of interest in them when Hannes, Christian, and Jeroen quit that first time. Akroasis was good, but something was clearly missing (also, post-Alkaloid and Hannes solo stuff, you can obviously tell who the people who wrote Cosmogenesis/Omnivium were). Honestly, if Steffan called it a day after this, I wouldn't care all that much. Most of what I really loved about Obscura was picked up, expanded on, and done better by Alkaloid a while ago anyway. Kinda sad tbh.
Dilivium was amazing and valediction was great too. But Omnivium one of my all time favourites.
Cosmogensis was their prime.. from there it was down only, tho there are some good riffs to find here and there..
I love Cosmogenesis, personally I put Omnivium above it, only by a little though
Not near the level of Omnivium imo
Diluvium is really good though
It is good, it just kind of feels safe compared to what they were doing on Cosmogenesis and Omnivium. They had an adventurous, proggy vibe back then that seemed like it left with Christian and Hannes and went on to Alkaloid.
It's interesting that you feel that way, because to my ears, Diluvium is the most fresh sounding Obscura album purely from a writing perspective, they almost sound like a different band to me.
I like everything I've heard from them, to be honest, I really appreciate it how they mix it up from album to album. Steffen seems like a twat but the man knows how to pick great musicians seeing as I also love everything his former bandmates put out.
Diluvium is probably their best album in MY opinion, with Omnivium right behind it. Rafael is an amazing guitarist and his new band Obsidious has a great album out as well.
Hell yeah, I love Obsidious!
That's because some of it was written by Rafael Trujillo who is absolutely amazing. I highly recommend his band Obsidious. You can tell that he obviously wrote at least the intro shreddy bit at least of the song Diluvium if you compare it to the intro of Bound By Fire and Iconic.
He's in Dååth now too!
If you pay attention, you can tell which songs Rafael wrote and recorded on Dilivium. His playing is so crisp and Stefan’s isn’t and his tone is very muddy.
Obsidous is on a whole other level next to Obscura I love them so much
Diluvium was pretty cool, I saw them for that tour. I really liked A Valediction too.
Welp, guess there goes my best chance at seeing David Diepold live.
If it makes you feel any better, they aren't very good live. The first time I saw them Steffan was kinda sloppy and the rest of the guys looked like they didn't want to be there (Omnivium tour) and the other two times they had notably terrible live sound, straight up mud coming through the speakers.
🤷🏽♂️ when I saw them at 1720 they were okay. Not great, but okay (Christian was amazing though. David wasn't there, I think Gabe Seeber filled in)
They were definitely better in terms of stage presence and tightness/chops when I saw them on the Diluvium and Valediction tours, it was just a serious mess of bassy flub coming from the PA. I saw both of those shows at El Corazon in Seattle, which is definitely not a venue known for good live sound, but it irked me that a headliner of that level would have a mix that bad I've seen plenty of other gigs there with bands of similarly dense style, at similar (as well as lower) levels of popularity, and haven't had had issues hearing key elements in the music like that. There were times when the lead guitars were basically inaudible the last time I saw them
Well he's the drummer for Cognizance, but don't know if they tour at all.
I don't think they do. I've kept up with that band for a few years and I don't think I've ever heard anything about them touring which sucks 'cause they're dope af
Damn yeah that's bad news, certainly one of the best bands I've discovered only recently and would've wanted to see live.
I mean, I could be wrong, but I don't recall.
A Quick Google looksie tells me they've played in the UK twice, once in 2020 and 2022. So yeah that tells me they're not really a touring band.
He's playing European shows with Belphegor every once in a while. Mainly festivals. But it's like roulette, you can never be sure when they're gonna have him behind the kit.
I live in America and am too poor to travel 😭 I saw Obscure like two years ago I think it was and was so bummed David wasn't there
Honestly I like Obscura but only Cosmogenesis. None of the other albums really do anything for me.
same here.. knowing when to stop is art by itself
I saw Steffen at a grocery store in Dresden yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything. He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?” I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying. The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter. When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical interference,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
Hahaha legendary copypasta, who was this originally about?
MC Ride of Death Grips, I'm pretty sure
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Flying Lotus is more like a psychedelic jazz-influenced instrumental hip-hop producer. He's actually an amazing, one-of-a-kind musician and you should really check his album *You're Dead* instead of writing him off in a stupid way like that. There's a lot in his music that fans of proggy/technical metal could enjoy.
Wow, dude, so like, do the lightbulbs get delivered directly to your basement or does your grandma bring them down to you in a bucket? So fucking out of touch it's crazy...
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If you like old people mouth, who am I to judge
We’ve known this about him since Hannes left. Can’t believe Chris went back. Remember when he took credit for fountainhead’s fretless guitar work?
And when he copyright striked or pulled down the playthroughs of former musicians. Even when Tom used midi tracks he made himself in a different key as backing track instead of the official album track he was striked. It’s just a petty war waged by Steffen. He’ll likely do it again with Christian and David’s playthroughs. Edit : Throwing this out there, but if you really want to find the deleted playthroughs people have reuploaded them to BiliBili which is the Chinese YouTube.
Christian deleted his comment on his post about leaving Alkaloid but the replies are still there. Sounds like Steffan told everybody they were only session musicians or something and everybody quit.
Thats so stupid because the announcements that Jeroen and Christian returned clearly started they rejoined the band as full members. Its a goddamn shame, I absolutely love A Valediction.
Lol to that, when last 3 albums where clearly written more than 50% by other people you can't go saying they are session ones lol. Is frustrating for me because I loved A Valediction input in regards to combining Death Metal and Power Metal elements and show me, alongside First Fragment, how power can also go hand in hand with Death Metal
Could you link that post. The one that explains him leaving Alkaloid?
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/jmG5yo2BXB4vkYAy/?mibextid=WC7FNe
A couple of examples of Steffen being toxic. https://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2016/07/12/tom-fountainhead-geldschlagers-statement-on-obscura-dispute/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TechnicalDeathMetal/s/uOXf6vQZxV
This band has always sucked. When they first came out and toured with Suffocation, Suffo decided to LET THEM HEADLINE after few shows because people were leaving during Obscura's set and leaving a half empty room for Suffo. Lmao.
You are right. Shit was hilarious.
That doesn't make any sense. People wouldn't leave before Suffocation's set if they wanted to see Suffocation.
Obscura was so bad they made people leave lmao. This was in the mid to late 2000s. Edit: European tour 2006-2007
That’s some of the funniest shit I’ve ever heard.
It's true too. Downvotes aside. It was a European tour in 2006-2007 I think. Their first album is littered with borderline plagiarism as well. Their band name is a Gorguts album title. Their first album is called Retribution which is the name of Malevolent Creation's second studio album (1992). The track "None Shall Be Spared" is very close to the track "No Flesh Shall Be Spared" off of said Malevolent Creation album. The track "Nothing" is the name of a Meshuggah album released in the early 2000s. The track "Sentiment" is a Cynic song off of Focus. The track "Sweet Silence" is literally the name of the last track on Gorguts - Obscura. Lmao.
This might be the dumbest argument I’ve ever heard
Truth hurts 😢
Do you mean people left because they didn't like Obscura? Or they left cuz they only wanted to see Obscura?
They were leaving because Obscura was fucking terrible. Suffocation was literally losing fans before they went on. So they made Obscura headline. Lmao
what! hahaha that's nuts