For 15 years, The Obsessed’s 1991 LP Lunar Womb was spoken about in hushed and reverent tones, particularly in stoner rock circles. That’s how long it took for the band’s second album to receive its first North American release in a lovingly assembled reissue/remaster from MeteorCity and 20 Buck Spin. Maybe you’d heard parts of it on a cassette dub. But more likely, you satisfied yourself with the Obsessed’s more widely available 1994 album The Church Within, featuring a slightly rejiggered version of the band, or any of this lineup’s run of tremendous follow-on projects, including Kyuss (bassist/vocalist Scott Reeder), Goatsnake (drummer Greg Rogers), and Spirit Caravan and the Hidden Hand (guitarist/vocalist Scott “Wino” Weinrich). Lunar Womb was for the true initiates.
The version of the Obsessed that birthed Lunar Womb achieved a strong following in Germany, though. The band’s label, Hellhound (which Wino had already worked with on the Saint Vitus LP V), had a genius formula for breaking American artists in the European market: Minimize airfare costs by scheduling longer tours, then send the bands straight to the studio after a few weeks of battle-testing the material on the road. By the time the trio made it to Berlin in April 1991 to record Lunar Womb, they were extremely well-rehearsed, and worked efficiently enough to allow a little time for quirky in-studio creations like the title track and the album’s instrumental closer “Embryo.”
With the Gilded Sorrow, the Obsessed have now released five full-lengths with five very different lineups, not to mention the shifts that took place before Lunar Womb or the reshuffling that occurred following the band’s full-time return in 2016. That’s kind of how it goes with all Wino projects, which resemble volcanos: violent and short-lived explosions, with molten lava seeping through the surface and creating new forms, ultimately leaving the ground very fertile for regrowth and renewal. So, from that standpoint, Lunar Womb certainly marked a radical departure from the tone of the material on The Obsessed, and, in turn, offered a teaser of the further dimensions that would be explored on The Church Within.
But Lunar Womb remains the quintessential album from the Obsessed, in part due to the unique circumstances of its creation. Although Wino has become synonymous with the Maryland doom scene, Lunar Womb was entirely gestated during the much shorter window when he was living in Los Angeles. And due to the somewhat rushed nature of assembling the band, the door was left wide open for Scott Reeder to contribute several songs from his earlier act Across the River. So, this version of the Obsessed featured two veteran songwriters who were both comfortable in studio settings, plus a drummer who was malleable and highly intuitive. Obvious high points are the intro and super-catchy chorus of “Back to Zero,” plus Wino’s exquisite, career-defining guitar solo at the end of “Endless Circles,” but Lunar Womb is a “biker doom” classic from end-to-end.
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