Soon after the release of the album, however, Tucker and West quit the band and were respectively replaced by Frank Watkins and then-Death guitarist James Murphy.

[5] In 1991, just prior to the writing and recording sessions of their third album, Murphy left Obituary to join Cancer and was replaced by a returning Allen West.

The End Complete was a moderate success for Obituary, having sold more than a hundred thousand copies,[2] and it was the band's first album to chart in the United States and Europe.

[8][9][10][11] This success also resulted in the release of Obituary's first-ever music video "The End Complete", which received significant airplay on MTV's Headbangers Ball,[12] and the band toured behind the album in over year, going from playing clubs to theaters and arenas.

[12] In support of World Demise, the band toured North America with Napalm Death and a then-unknown Machine Head, and Europe with Pitchshifter and Eyehategod.

"[16] By 1998, Obituary had disbanded due to exhaustion from touring, lack of support from their label, and its band members getting jobs and raising families of their own.

"[16] Guitarist Trevor Peres later claimed that one of the reasons Obituary broke up was because they "had been together since we were teenagers, and then all of a sudden it turned into a professional thing and we were touring and for like 10 years we didn't live like normal people, we were like animals, like monkeys in a cage.

[25] On August 24, 2016, Obituary streamed a new song called "Loathe", a B-side to their then-upcoming single "Ten Thousand Ways to Die", which was released on October 21.

"[30] In an August 2020 interview with Australia's Riff Crew, Donald Tardy revealed that, during the pandemic, Obituary had been working on a "monster" of a new album planned for release in 2021.

[32] In a March 2021 interview with France's United Rock Nations, vocalist John Tardy reiterated his brother's comments, saying that Obituary had been working on new material during the COVID-19 pandemic, and added that their new album would be released in 2022, with a tour to follow.

[34][35] Obituary's music is based on heavy groove guitar and drum riffs along with John Tardy's growling vocals, creating one of the signature sounds of death metal.

[36] Jon Wiederhorn of Loudwire wrote that the band "were less musically adept than Morbid Angel or Death, so they downplayed whirlwind tempos for chugging, grimy half-time rhythms that sounded like they were oozing from a sewage treatment plant.

"[37] Eduardo Rivadavia of Loudwire wrote, "Obituary managed to stand out among the early Floridian death metal bands by way of a very simple, but effective songwriting strategy.

Namely, while most of their contemporaries were still indebted to thrash and raging away at blazing speeds, Obituary embraced the slower tempos typical of doom metal, and fused it all together behind some of the era’s heaviest guitar tones.