I have been a fan of this band for several years so jumped on the opportunity to give this a listen. I really like the stark Interpol like vocals set against the dramatic harder rock back drop and the album opens right where I would want them to be. There are large doses of post-rock flirting with the more rock side of metal in it's drive. "Beyond the Pale Society" is even more emotionally charged than the first song and it's clear this album really sounded great and has a darker undercurrent. I some ways this is thanks to the keyboards. They pretty much become a Deftones tribute band on the song "A Mass For Metaphysicians". This gets cleared up a little on the chorus, but I am a little at odds as to why they wanted to spoil a good thing with such a obvious attempt to cop the Deftones. the more atmospheric passages that wind out of this song do help redeem them.
"Clean the Beast" continue to find them employing a sense of drive and even harsher screamed vocals to accent the chorus, but I think most metal fans would still be reluctant to call this metal. Once again their yearning to be the Deftones is a distraction when it comes to parts of "the Queens Constellation". I can deal with the more Cure like touches of atmosphere that keep "TelePaths and Pyramids" floating. They continue to redeem their Deftones tendencies with the almost Dead Can Dance like "Masquerade in Veils" . So one lesson to learn here kids is , I don't care if you rip off the bands I love, but even the Deftones don't want to sound like themselves these days.
They close the album on a less epic note than expected with the last two songs being "Heresy of the Free Spirit" and "Black Sarcophagus" . This is an album where the song titles are harder than they are. Despite the Deftones moments which are somewhat forgivable and seldom consume the whole song, this album is very moody and melodic with more balls than your hipster post-punk, so it has that going for it enough for me to give it a 9 and a few more listens. "like" us on Facebook...https://www.facebook.com/abysmalhymns/
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