Will to Live

OBITUARY'S KEN ANDREWS AND TREVOR PERES TAKE GW THROUGH THE DEATH METAL INSTITUTION'S VITAL AND EVEN BLUESY - 11TH ALBUM, DYING OF EVERYTHING

- Gregory Adams

FEW WOULD REGISTER Obituary's catalog of festering riffage and grotesque, groove-heavy pummeling as an all-out laugh riot, but when it came time for the Tampa, Florida-formed death metal icons to make their 11th album, Dying of Everything, lead guitarist Ken Andrews' quixotic approach to soloing had him cracking up behind the scenes.

"I always joke around," he explains to Guitar World over Zoom from a tour stop in Georgia. "Obituary's sound is Trevor [Peres]'s massive guitar, and I'm just the jerk-off making weird noises."

Modest thoughts, considering how Andrews' expertly disgusting, trem-quaked leads rattle the core throughout the new album, but he may have a point. Founding rhythm guitarist Peres has a knack for anchoring the group's tunes with an unwaveringly chunky, grave-sodden guitar tone think the dank, dirgey drive of the title track to the band's 1990 debut, Slowly We Rot, or the caveman crunch of Frozen in Time's instrumental "Redneck Stomp." With that kind of bedrock in place, Andrews - who joined the band ahead of 2014's Inked in Blood - is offered a lot of wiggle room to wail out a zany lead. Dying of Everything continues that tradition with "By the Dawn," an otherwise bludgeoning death waltz that features some weird, whammy-riddled sections from Nasty Savage six-stringer David Austin, as well as a slippery, slide-based lead from Obituary's shredder-in-residence. The latter manages to be a uniquely head-cocking moment that answers the once improbable question: what if Obituary went Delta blues?