Obscure Sphinx
| Obscure Sphinx | |
|---|---|
 Zofia "Wielebna" Fraś |
|
| General information | |
| origin | Warsaw , Poland |
| Genre (s) | Post metal |
| founding | 2008 |
| Website | www.obscuresphinx.com |
| Founding members | |
| Mateusz "Werbel" Badacz (until 2016) | |
| Michał "Blady" Rejman | |
| Bartosz "Bartek" Badacz (until 2011) | |
| Current occupation | |
| Zofia "Wielebna" Fraś (since 2009) | |
Electric guitar |
Michał "Blady" Rejman |
Electric guitar |
Aleksander "Olo" Łukomski (since 2011) |
| former members | |
Electric bass |
Tomasz "Yony" Jońca (2009 to 2017) |
| Live and session members | |
Drums |
Paweł "Pavulon" Jaroszewicz (live, since 2014) |
Obscure Sphinx is a Polish post-metal band.
history
The band was founded in 2008 by the Badacz siblings, drummer Mateusz "Werbel" Badacz and guitarist Bartosz "Bartek" Badacz. The brothers invited the bassist Michał "Blady" Rejman and looked for other musicians to expand the band structure. In addition, Obscure Sphinx placed some online advertisements. Within a year, the second guitarist Tomasz “Yony” Jońca and the singer Zofia “Wielebna” Fraś joined them. In this temporarily stable line-up, the group recorded two demo CDs and the first album named Anesthetic Inhalation Ritual . Bartosz Badacz left the group during the promotion phase of the self-produced debut album and was replaced as guitarist by Aleksander "Olo" Łukomski. In order to attract increased attention, also outside of Poland, Obscure Sphinx registered with Anesthetic Inhalation Ritual 2012 at the New Blood Award of the Summer Breeze and prevailed over the competition, including Goodbye to Gravity . Obscure Sphinx opened Thursday of the festival as the winner of the New Blood Award. The victory brought the band increased attention. The debut album was discussed several times with reference to victory. In addition, requests for joint tours by well-known bands of the genre such as Dirge and Rosetta increased . In November 2014 the album was counted among the ten almost forgotten Doom pearls in Deaf Forever magazine .
Despite the success and the attentiveness that came with it, the band did not receive a contract offer that met the group's demands, whereupon Obscure Sphinx also financed the second album in complete independence. A music video for the track Lunar Caustic was released before the album's release date . The album Void Mother , like the previous work, was largely positively received by the critics and among other things reached third place in the annual best list of the site MetalStorm.net in the genre category Post-Metal.
Following the release, the band went on tour as the opening act for the death metal group Behemoth . In the fall of 2014 Obscure Sphinx embarked on an independent European tour with Hate drummer Paweł “Pavulon” Jaroszewicz as a guest drummer. Further tours, including a Poland and a Balkan tour, and festival appearances at the Polish Castle Party and the Czech Brutal Assault followed. In September 2016, the third studio album Epitaphs was again self-published. Also epitaph was praised by critics. To promote the album, the band went on a tour of Poland, with an interposed appearance at the Berlin festival De Mortem Et Diabolum . In the same year Badacz left the band and, like Jońca, who left the band the following year, was not officially replaced for the time being.
In March 2020 the band released the live album Thaumaturgy I , which was recorded on April 28, 2018 in the Progresja Club in Warsaw .
style
The band's music is mainly attributed to post-metal. Obscure Sphinx are compared to popular performers of the style such as Neurosis , Rosetta , Amenra , Buried Inside, and Cult of Luna . Despite this classification, the music is considered to be “multifaceted”, and a “high degree of independence” is ascribed to it. Influences from Djent , Sludge , Progressive Metal and Post-Rock are often described. The guitarist Łukomski also describes the categorization of the band through genre terms as insufficient.
"We use terms like Post Metal, Sludge, Experimental or Progressive, but our music goes beyond that."
The assumption of a Djent influence is based on the assessment of the musicians as a result of the use of eight-string guitars and a six-string bass. The typical Djent, however, has little in common with Obscure Sphinx's approach, which is more emotional than technical. In particular, the voice of Zofia "Wielebna" Fraś , which is described as unique , is ascribed a particularly striking effect. On metal.de the vocals are described as "diverse, but relentlessly convincing". According to metal.de, the singer “sings, moans, screams and yells” and reveals “so many feelings […] in every syllable that it […] sometimes depresses”. Andreas Schulz also highlights the singing for the magazine Deaf Forever and describes it as "on the one hand fragile and vulnerable, on the other hand screaming in agony."
Discography
- 2009: Blinded by the Light (Demo)
- 2009: Part of Unexisting Space (Demo)
- 2011: Anesthetic Inhalation Ritual (Album, Fuck the Tag)
- 2013: Void Mother (album, Fuck the Tag)
- 2016: Epitaphs (album, Fuck the Tag)
- 2020: Thaumaturgy I (Live Album)
Web links
- Sphinx obscure at Discogs (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Tarek: Interview: Obscure Sphinx. Arctic Drones, accessed December 12, 2015 .
- ↑ a b c Andreas Schulz: Interview with Obscure Sphinx (09/24/2012). Music reviews, accessed December 12, 2015 .
- ↑ a b Andreas Schulz: Obscure Sphinx: Anesthetic Inhalation Ritual . In: Deaf Forever . November 2014.
- ^ Moritz Grütz: Interview with Olo and Blady from Obscure Sphinx. Metal1, accessed December 12, 2015 .
- ^ Obscure Sphinx: il video di “Lunar Caustic”. Metal Italia, accessed December 12, 2015 .
- ^ Metal Storm Awards 2013. Metal Storm, accessed December 12, 2015 .
- ↑ Islander: Obscure Sphinx: Epitaphs. No Clean Singing, accessed December 15, 2016 .
- ↑ Album Stream: Obscure Sphinx. (No longer available online.) Deaf Forever, archived from the original on December 12, 2016 ; accessed on December 15, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Obscure Sphinx Official Bandcamp. Retrieved May 6, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Andreas Schulz: Anesthetic Inhalation Ritual. metal.de, accessed on December 21, 2015 .
- ^ A b Moritz Grütz: Obscure Sphinx: Void Mother. metal1.de, accessed on December 21, 2015 .
- ↑ Jan Wischkowski: Anesthetic Inhalation Ritual. metal.de, accessed on December 21, 2015 .
- ↑ Monolithic: Obscure Sphinx - Anesthetic Inhalation Ritual. Metal Storm, accessed December 21, 2015 .
- ↑ Obscure Sphinx. Summer Breeze, accessed December 21, 2015 .
- ^ Jan Wischkowski: Void Mother. Metal.de, accessed on December 21, 2015 .
