We have a new album coming out in November, it's called "Cause of Death". We did a cover tune on it called "Circle of the Tyrants" by Celtic Frost. We redid "Find the Arise", from Raging Death compilation. The album was done on 24-tracks unlike "Slowly We Rot" which was done on 8-tracks. So we had a lot more freedom. We could put a lot more of our ideas into the songs. I think it came out real great and I hope you guys are pleased with it. I'm looking forward to the release of it myself.
John Tardy / Obituary interview, Chainsaw Abortions #2, 1990
OBITUARY released their second album, Cause of Death, on this day in 1990.
Nine totally dismemberable news songs from "The heaviest band of ghouls on the planet" (Sounds) and as Trevor Peres, Obituary guitarist says, "The old album Slowly We Rot was done on 8 tracks, this is on 24 tracks so it's 3 times as heavy!"
The cover is taken from Michael Whelan's Lovecraft's Nightmare diptych (1981). Portions were first used as covers for a series of H.P. Lovecraft books published by Ballantine in the early 80s. OBITUARY used most of the original 'A' design but the insect (far right) was removed.
The album was gonna be complete without [the Celtic Frost cover], it's just uh, a matter of, they used to play it when they were called XECUTIONER, way before I joined, and... it's just a typical thing that Trevor would kick into it in the studio, and Scott Burns recorded it, and it sounded bad, so we recut it, just as an extra track, or just for ourselves, so when we were done with it, we were like fuck yeah man, let's put it on the album, cause there's no reason not to. We loved it, it's just kind of an afterthought, really...
James Murphy / Obituary interview, Deathcheese #1, 1991