There’s no mistaking the intent behind Obscurity’s new record “Black Cat, Good Luck.” The Athens-based duo call it what it is — a product of exhaustion, frustration, and the need to turn all that static into something that actually breathes. “This record stemmed from a period in which we were both constantly angry at a variety of things,” they explain. “From service industry work to interpersonal relationships; just always pissed at something.”
Instead of masking it, they wore it out loud — feeding every dissonant impulse into scorched industrial textures and distorted club rhythms. “We decided to muster up all of our noisiest and excessively confrontational thoughts and feelings and put them into something somewhat productive,” they add. It’s not a record that looks for relief. It digs into the noise and stays there.
The duo — Addy on vocals and Aidan on instrumentals — channel a collision of Athens hardcore roots and digital aggression. They describe Athens as a place that shaped their attitude as much as their sound: “We have only ever known Athens for its consistently hardcore-based scene, which played a huge part in both our sonic and verbal expressions.” You can hear that lineage, but also the way they bend it through cold machinery and heavy electronic pulse.
On “Drink Smoke Fuck,” they push the industrial techno drive to its limit — a track that feels like standing too close to a speaker stack, the distortion almost physical. The companion single “Trenches” flips to an ambient, experimental space — still tense, still on edge, but built on atmosphere instead of impact. Across the full record, they swing between those extremes. Tracks like “Ultra Bitch” slam hard and unfiltered, while “Wound That Leaks” and “Hell Burns for You, Not Me” drag the tempo down into something slower, heavier, and more psychological.
Addy’s delivery carries the ghost of acts like Dystopia, Brainbombs, and Pharmakon, raw and abrasive yet oddly precise in how it lands. Aidan’s production, in turn, pulls from Death Grips, Xiu Xiu, and Coil — that same tension between chaos and control, violence and design. “Combining these different branches has helped us keep our sound somewhat unique to ourselves,” they note, “without letting us take too much from any given source.”
“Black Cat, Good Luck” comes out November 2 — thirteen tracks that don’t chase comfort or cohesion, but something closer to truth through abrasion. It’s not about being polished; it’s about getting it out of your system, whatever that costs.
