"Gorguts brought the initial phases of death metal toward a greater realization of melodic structuring before it was conventional to do so renovate the genre again with the innovation of a new form of chaotic yet lucid composition. Gorguts is avant-garde/technical metal band from Quebec, a city that brought us other death metal ledgends Cryptopsy and progressive thrashers Voivod. Although Gorguts started out as old school death metal act they would later, tired of the cliche and cookie cutter death metal acts at the time evolve into a highly technical, highly avant-garde and dissonant technincal metal with a completly unique style that fused the death/jazz fusion of Atheist and Cynic with Suffocation and Cryptopsy with free jazz and composers like Penderecki.
In 1998 Gorguts released their magnum opus, Obscura. A metal album like no other. Labeled as the Trout Mask Relipca of death metal due to its "High speed counterpoint baffling chord structures buttressed by recursion, tonal centering through droning cyclic melted sound emergence, ragged fugues of dissonant melodies converging toward oblivion, tempos shifting through the elements of one another into each other, cyclic two-hit metal percussive structures and free-form progressive harmonic jamming are packed into these songs as overhead to the essence of each, which no matter how aesthetically different it appears at first listen reveals itself as fundamental Gorguts when the emergent melody encoded within begins to find form in the various aspects of its decomposition showcased by differentiation structures creating a vast tonal motion in their evolutionary journey from the point of chaos to clarity. The same voice that crafted the strength within the sturdy structures of death metal on two previous albums speaks through the chaos on this release with a newfound power in its ability to fuse what to most will seem like a salad of riffs juxtaposed for their difference rather than similarity."
In 2001 Gorguts released From Widsom To Hate. Still avant-garde but more "straight-forward" than Obscura it earned Gorguts more fans with your average death-metaller but was undoubtedly a step down from Obscura. This compilation contains some of my favourite Gorguts tracks. I recommend the Obscura tracks and "Inverted"listen if you dare, at first you will undoubtedly be left thinking "what the hell!?" but if you stick with it you'll reap the benefits .
- Inverted (From Wisdom To Hate)
- Condemned (Considered Dead)
- Stiff & Cold (Considered Dead)
- Behave Through Mythos (From Wisdom To Hate)
- Disincarnated (Considered Dead)
- Dormant Misery (The Erosion Of Sanity)
- Testimonial Ruins (From Wisdom To Hate)
- Inoculated Life (Considered Dead)
- Faceless Ones (Obscura)
- Lie Vie Est Prelude (Obscura)
- Nostalgia (Obscura)
- Obscura (Obscura)
- The Art Of Sombre Ecstasty (Obscura)
- The Carnal State (Obscura)
