We’ve covered dark and foreboding misery, as well as powerful cathartic release. Now, it’s time for relentlessly oppressive hate and despair. Although the second full-length from Obitus is not out yet, the two short samples offer us a glimpse at the final product. Slave of the Vast Machine is intended to be one, 45-minute track, and the two snippet give the listener a wall of post-blackened hatred. The production brings the tremolo picking guitar riffs and painful screams to the forefront while the blast beats lurk beneath the surface. The slower sections are marked by over-powering dissonant chords that give the samples a further twisted and haunting atmosphere that is terrifically terrifying.

The description of the album contains a quote from the increasingly relevant classic, Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell, 1949), which states that,”if you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face – forever.” Regardless of whether you consider the myriad of real-world comparisons to the novel hyperbolic (I, for one, do not), it is a fitting quote for the music of Obitus and their dystopic soundtrack. If we’re headed for totalitarianism and misery, hopefully Our Dear Leader let’s me keep this album.