Tampa, Florida's Obituary are a veteran death metal band whose origins date back to the style's first wave. Though they've endured lineup changes, three of its original members -- drummer Don Hardy, vocalist Tom Hardy, and guitarist Trevor Peres -- have been aboard since 1986. Their early sound juxtaposed lo-fi death metal and hardcore, while Hardy's vocals, though screamed, were readily decipherable -- this is no longer true and lyric sheets are necessary. Early albums including 1989's Slowly We Rot and 1990's Cause of Death embodied the chug and burn aesthetic. Following the release of 1997's Back from the Dead, they split for several years. In 2004, a reunited quintet recorded Frozen in Time. Xecutioner's Return followed in 2007 to glowing reviews internationally. Darkest Day appeared in 2009. The band issued Inked in Blood in 2014 and Obituary in 2017. Three live albums and the single "A Dying World" were released between 2020 and 2022. In January 2023 the full-length Dying of Everything was released by Relapse.

Possessed and Death may have brought death metal to life, but it was Obituary who brought it to fruition. After releasing some demos as Xecutioner as far back as 1986, the five-man band -- the Hardy Brothers, Peres, guitarist Allen West and bassist Daniel Tucker -- debuted as Obituary in 1989 with Slowly We Rot; the album is a landmark in the evolution of death metal. Previous forays into the genre -- primarily by the above-mentioned bands along with grindcore innovators Repulsion and Napalm Death -- were exercises in relentlessness. These bands took the breakneck abandon of Slayer's Reign in Blood one step further to the point of sheer musical excess and abandon. Obituary, on the other hand, varied their tempo considerably -- and did so at the absolute height of speed metal.

Yes, the band could play at breakneck speed, but within the same song, guitarists Allen West and Trevor Peres could slow the tempo down to dirge-like levels at a moment's notice, all the while keeping the music heavy as hell thanks to downtuned guitars and the snarling vocals of John Tardy. As a result, Slowly We Rot made quite a splash back in 1989, influencing an entire legion of death metal bands in Florida: Morbid Angel, Deicide, Malevolent Creation, Cannibal Corpse, and numerous others now forgotten among the thousands of international bands that followed. In a way, Slowly We Rot was the prototypical death metal album, establishing a template that would come to define the style (one that is distinct from grindcore and black metal, it should be pointed out).

A few albums followed -- Cause of Death (1990) and The End Complete (1992), also proved influential -- but following the tepid reviews that greeted 1994's World Demise and 1997's Back from the Dead, Obituary, who toured exhaustively for four years, had exhausted themselves physically and creatively. They splintered, reuniting now and then for one-off shows. Yet even as the bandmembers went their separate ways (most notably West going on to much success as the guitarist in Six Feet Under), Obituary continued to stand tall as one of, if not the definitive death metal band.

Roadrunner, the band's label, issued the live album Dead and Anthology in 2001 furthering the rumor that the band was gone for good. The two-fer Slowly We Rot/Cause of Death was released in 2003.

Fans didn't know it, but Obituary was actually in the studio recording with new bassist Frank Watkins. The fruit of these sessions yielded 2005's Frozen in Time. The universally acclaimed Xecutioners Return followed two years later, and was recorded without guitarist West (whose alcohol and drug problems led to his being replaced temporarily by Ralph Santolla of Millennium and Deicide fame).

Darkest Day followed in 2009, also on Candlelight. Both Santolla and longtime bassist Frank Watkins (the latter of whom passed away in 2015 from cancer) left not long after, and in 2014 the band released its crowdfunded ninth album Inked in Blood. It was the first Obituary album to feature new guitarist Kenny Andrews and bassist Terry Butler on bass. The album performed surprisingly well commercially, resulting in Obituary's first appearance on the U.S. album charts. Two years later, the band issued Ten Thousand Ways to Die, that included two new studio singles alongside a dozen live tracks. In 2017, the single "No," and the two-fer compiling Inked in Blood/Ten Thousand Ways both appeared just ahead of the band's tenth studio album, Obituary, in 2017. The self-titled record drew widespread acclaim, with many critics noting a sense of renewed life in the band. It was their second offering in a row to crack the Top 200 in the U.S.; it also made the Top 40 in six additional countries. The band toured relentlessly for more than two years, and were forced off the road by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The independent Taurus label released the archival Torture Chamber (Live 1992) later that year. In 2022, the band signed with Relapse that issued the live offerings Cause of Death: Live Infection, and Slowly We Rot: Live Rotting in preparation for the January 2023 release of Dying of Everything. Its cover painting was created by renowned Polish artist Mariusz Lewandowski, who had died the preceding July. ~ Jason Birchmeier & Thom Jurek, Rovi