The band had been on indefinite hiatus since 1997 and by the middle of 2002 playing together again was the furthest thing on their minds. Singer John Tardy was working at a computer company, guitarist Trevor Peres was in Catastrophic, guitarist Allen West was in Lowbrow, bassist Frank Watkins was hawking mortgages, and drummer Donald Tardy was playing live with Andrew WK. Then, before an Ozzfest gig in West Palm Beach, Andrew WK called John and Frank and invited them to play a few songs onstage with him. "We hooked up to practice a couple songs and we remembered how fun it was to play together," John says. "That's all it took. We ended up doing a couple shows that were really well received, and things just snowballed from there." In early 2004, Obituary finally decided to start working on their sixth studio record. Often, when bands haven't been together for years, writing sessions are initially strained or unproductive and it takes a while for the musicians to get back on their creative feet. Obituary had no such problem. "It was really like putting on an old pair of shoes," John says. "It didn't seem like it had been six years at all, it was more like the blink of an eye. Some of us had longer beards than we used to have but everything felt the same. After about five minutes together, we were totally back at 100 percent."

Past events

• Thu 15 Jun at Dublin Temple Bar Music Centre. (post review)
• Tue 13 Jun at Glasgow Soundhaus. (post review)
• Sun 11 Jun at London Astoria 2 formerly Mean Fiddler. (post review)
• Mon 09 Jan at Dublin Temple Bar Music Centre. (post review)
• Sun 08 Jan at London Astoria 2 formerly Mean Fiddler. (post review)

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