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Obliveon's debut album, From This Day Forward, is one that I have complex feelings for as, on the one hand, it was the arrival of a band I hold dear now as much as I did then, but on the other it was arguably the weakest version of that arrival. See, I was in contact with their old manager, Nancy Charland, back in 1989 and was able to get my hands on their pre-production demo plus Fiction of Veracity. These sounded rough and crisp, which was exactly what their unique blend of intricate Death/Thrash needed to pop out. I listened to these so much that by the time I got ahold of their debut, I was taken aback by how thin the production of the songs found on the demos had become as a final product, which noticeably held back the strengths of the band and made for an inferior listening experience overall.

That brief history lesson makes it sound like I don't like this album, but that's not the case at all. From This Day Forward only had seven tracks from both demos, but they all displayed a band looking to do something different and technical in the field of Death/Thrash, making a sound that's something akin to the marriage of Metallica's Master of Puppets and Sacrifice's Forward to Termination with harsh grunts and even more technicality than that would imply. Songs like "Fiction of Veracity", "Droïromized" and "It Should Have Stayed Unreal" display all the intricate heaviness and catchy melodic sensibilities that defined the band and they do it with style, I just wish that they sounded better, rougher and with more bite to them.

Production woes aside, From This Day Forward is a vital part of the early days of the Canadian underground, even if it's not the strongest version of the songs on offer. Worth checking out.