Abyssal : "Antikatastaseis"

Here is an album I had to sit on and digest for a little bit until I really dug into to review. Some writers seem a little confused as to what genre these guys are, so I will tell it to you straight and say they are straight up black metal, but if you took away most of death metal's thrash influence out. You might want to add ample amounts of dissonance. Sure there is some tremolo picking here and there, but these guys fall pretty close to what was being called "occult death metal" as few years back. More in your face than hiding in the caves. They do start there second song with some ritualistic drumming and then blast into things, with plenty of quick accents and they possess what any good death metal band must have...a drummer who kills it. However on the thirds song things start running together a little and becoming a blur of heavy. They do slow it down and find some melodic passages that are often just hints that they pound out of existence in a temper tantrum.

Then things get a little crazy. "Veil of Transcendence " breaks down into a music box playing which they then allow to play in the back ground over the rest of the song that they are beating the hell out of to create a really creepy effect. The first time I heard this I had to check to see if a pop-up had opened in another window and was making that sound. "Telomeric Erosion" gets sonic but is tame in comparison. Half of "Casual Landscape" is an ambient synth pad that echoes out into the blasting feral attack that follows. They maintain this sonic sense on "Chrysalis" that finds the bass players really moving around and doing some great melodic work underneath everything.Its mid-way through the final song that they find a riff that grabs my attention. I'll give this album an 8, though now it seems like I am rounding it up to one as when I went back to listen to it thinking I had forgotten to rate it it, I found myself caring less about it than the first day I heard this album. It is still densely beautiful at times and the guitar tones stand out after further listens.