Heavy Song of the Week is a new feature on Heavy Consequence breaking down the top metal and hard rock tracks you need to hear every Friday. This week the honor goes to death metal veterans Obituary’s “My Will to Live.”
Ah yes, a new year. In the realm of music criticism, it means a clean slate. All those lists and rankings of the top albums and songs reset to zero, and we must discover anew. A perfect time to launch our “Heavy Song of the Week” feature.
The music industry generally shuts down around the holidays, so this first week of January was slim pickings. That said, those who were bold enough to take advantage of the slow week and drop new music garnered the spotlight. Obituary relished in it, serving up a tasty slab of old-school death metal with “My Will to Live” — the latest single from their forthcoming album Dying of Everything.
One of the great aspects of heavy metal is how it tends to evolve year in and year out, as sub-genres shapeshift and combine with one another. That’s why metal remains a timeless and international language, informed by the past but not beholden to it — a delicate balance of nostalgia and progress.
Here, the nostalgia factor is high, as Obituary remind us that sometimes, sick riffs and divebomb solos are all you need. No weird time signatures or experimentations (Mithridatum more than fill that requirement in our honorable mention tracks below). Let it be known, the old-school death metal template — which Obituary helped forge — never expired. It’s the meat and potatoes to prog and tech-death’s leafy greens. A little of both leads to a balanced diet. Frontman John Tardy even has a Tom G. Warrior-like snarl to his delivery on “My Will to Live,” and that’s always gonna win over our hearts.
— Jon Hadusek,
Senior Staff Writer