Audience-Alienating Era: Back from the Dead is universally seen as one of these, and both Xecutioner's Return and Darkest Day are widely hated as well for what is seen as anemic, unimaginative riffing and songwriting coupled with an overabundance of needlessly overplayed shred solos. Finding an Obituary fan who truly enjoys both of the Santolla-era albums is almost as hard as finding one who enjoys Back from the Dead. Xecutioner's Return and Darkest Day are the only albums by the band not to be available for digital purchase, meaning it's possible they themselves don't regard them as their best work, either.
Awesome Music: Slowly We Rot and Cause of Death from start to finish.
Contested Sequel: It's far from unanimous, but there's some debate over the quality of World Demise due to its shift toward a more conventional three-chorus song structure on about half the album, including the below-mentioned "Don't Care". On the flipside Back From The Dead is regarded as a low point by most fans and critics due to weaker performances on the part of all the band, and rather lifeless production.
Memetic Mutation: CHOPPED IN HAUUUUUUUUUUUUGHnote The first line from "Chopped in Half", due to John's extremely over-the-top delivery of the line
Never Live It Down: Allen West's post-Obituary/Six Feet Under life has become one big string of these, with five DUI arrests (in the state of Florida, three major violations makes one eligible for habitual offender status, which is an automatic five-year license revocation; five of them got him an eight-month prison sentence and most likely rendered him permanently ineligible to legally drive in the state) on his record, not to mention an arrest in March of 2013 for running a meth lab in his house that was discovered after he called the police to report a burglary.
Once Original, Now Overdone: A minor example. They were one of the earliest death metal bands to incorporate groove as a major part of their sound, as well as arguably the biggest to this day. While this was a huge part of what made them stand out at their peak, with many other bands having come after them following suit (e.g. Bolt Throwernote While their first album came out before Slowly We Rot, they started off as grindcore and didn't settle into their signature sound fully until War Master in 1991Illdisposed, Jungle Rot, Kataklysm (post-Serenity in Fire), Blood Red Throne, Benediction, etc.), their sound can come off as primitive even by the standards of said style by newer listeners. John Tardy himself has even become aware of this, referring to them as "cavemen who keep things simple" in recent years in regards to their music.
Replacement Scrappy: Ralph Santolla, and how. The hatred that he got for his performances on Xecutioner's Return and Darkest Day was downright staggering.
Sacred Cow: You're not likely to find any Obituary fan who dislikes Cause of Death. Even death metal fans who don't care for the band much will admit it's a damn good album. It's widely considered to be not just the band's best record, but one of the defining death metal releases of the early 1990s as a whole.
Signature Song: Post-reunion, probably "Redneck Stomp". Pre-reunion, probably "The End Complete" or "Don't Care".
Win Back the Crowd: None of their reunion albums have been held in particularly high regard. Frozen in Time was So Okay, It's Average, the Santolla albums were largely despised, and Inked in Blood was generally seen as a disappointment with a few good songs and a whole lot of filler. Basically, fan opinion of post-reunion Obituary was largely "see 'em live for the songs that you actually give a shit about". Then the self-titled dropped and the fanbase wholeheartedly embraced it as their best album since their original run.
