Obituary will reissue Xecutioner's Return and Darkest Day on 11 December through Relapse Records, remastered, on LP, double LP, CD and cassette. Both reach streaming services for the first time.
That second fact is the interesting one. Two albums by a band this established have spent the whole streaming era missing from it, which in practice means a generation of listeners has had no legal way to hear them without buying a second hand disc. Neither has been pressed in over fifteen years.
The reason is usually a licence sitting with a label that has no reason to act, and the fix is usually the band getting the rights back. What the band themselves point at is the people on the records: "It will give everyone an opportunity to enjoy and remember Frank Watkins and the final Obituary recordings with him," they said, alongside the solos Ralph Santolla played.
Xecutioner's Return dates from 2007 and is named after the band's original name. The remaster of Darkest Day adds a Celtic Frost cover and the 2008 version of "Slowly We Rot", until now stranded on an EP.