In Those Days is the whole film in audio form: score and songs woven into one dark fantasy journey through the book of Judges. Oblige imagines ancient Canaan as a crownless, mythic world where toppled idols, broken vows, and flawed “heroes” move through smoke, brass, and electric shadows.

The Score side carries the cinematic spine: overtures and motifs for a land with no king, sleazy temple grooves for Baal-berith, crooked odd-meter stealth for the left-handed assassin, noir prophecy cues under the palm tree, war engines for iron chariots, midnight jazz in Jael’s tent, Gideon’s winepress anxiety, Jephthah’s vow in the dark, Nazarite themes for a man who looks ordinary but carries impossible power, and the final collapse of pillars and pride.

The Songs side gives those same stories a voice: a rock-opera prologue of “every man doing what is right in his own eyes,” a temple nightclub hymn to Baal, a sly assassin confessional, a haunted Deborah/Barak duet as the stars fight from heaven, a trembling Gideon pulled out of hiding, a daughter caught in the teeth of her father’s promise, and the quiet heartbreak and seduction orbiting Samson.

Musically, it lives where big-band jazz, progressive rock, cabaret noir, and film score collide—horns, upright bass, guitars, piano/organ, drums, and strings all sharing motifs across both albums. Heard together, this “complete motion picture soundtrack” plays like a movie that hasn’t been filmed yet: one continuous arc from “In those days there was no king…” to the unresolved hush of No King in Israel.

In Those Days

In Those Days is a dark-fantasy jazz/blues concept album built on the book of Judges—half film score, half rock opera, all one continuous world.

Obligé scores a crownless Canaan with smoky horns, upright bass, haunted guitars, and stormy drums: temple nightclubs for Baal, crooked odd-meter stealth for the left-handed assassin, noir prophecy under the palm tree, iron chariots rolling like war machines, midnight tension in Jael’s tent, Gideon shaking in a winepress, a daughter caught in the teeth of a vow, and a man who looks ordinary but tears down gates and pillars by a strength that makes no sense.

Some tracks play like pure score, others like songs sung from inside the story, but the same themes keep resurfacing—motifs slipping between sax lines and vocals, big-band blasts giving way to quiet, wounded prayers. This is Judges as a jazz-shadowed myth: no king, too many gods, and a handful of fragile people trying to stand up in the ruin.

The Song of Deborah

The Song of Barak

A fractured manifesto set to hard rock, machine pulse, and cinematic dread.

Coterie of Cretins is a broadcast from the fault line where humanity and technology intersect — not in harmony, but in discomfort, suspicion, and reluctant dependence. These songs live inside the fluorescent hum of a world where every device pretends to listen, every choice feels rehearsed, and every person is half algorithm whether they admit it or not.

Across twelve tracks, the album follows the last free thinkers, doubters, Luddites-for-likes, and digital ghosts as they move between locked doors, broken signals, and too-perfect faces. Some fight back. Some give in. Some just scroll until the scrolling stops.

The sound is heavy, resonant, metallic, industrial at its core but driven by human lungs and human fear. Guitars grind against synths. Drums slam against circuitry. Voices remain the last unprocessed instrument — desperate, stubborn, hopeful, furious.

This is not an album about technology.
It’s an album about living through it.

Coterie of Cretins asks one question repeatedly:

If this is the future, is there anywhere left to stand that’s still ours?

Through the Window

Angles of Angels

The Uncanny Valley

A Luddite for Likes

Parallel

The Grand Hallway

Volant Records is a story-driven label and shared universe: cinematic concept albums, stutter-house, western sagas, haunted pop, and hymn-like instrumentals. Home to Jupiter Morrow, Avaline Ingels, Shadow Face, Buck Ramble, Choralith and more. All Worlds Reserved®.