Do you remember those years when it was your birthday and that you sneaked down the stairs very early to see the decorated living room and, mostly, what your parents had wrapped for you? You know you needed a new bicycle and you heard your parents talk about you needing one, not too long before your birthday. Now then you see the gift standing there, big and wrapped, but clearly the shape of a bicycle. Then you have to gently sneak back to your bedroom and eagerly wait until it’s time and you finally get to actually go down…
A new Abysmal Lord album is actually a bit of the same thing, a surprise that is not actually a surprise. Following the previous two albums and the hand full of short players (demos, EP’s and a split EP), the American Black/Death Metal trio doesn’t surprise you at all, not the tiniest bit. They still drag you through the dirtiest sewers of the meanest outskirts of the metal genre. Their chaotic chaos-like chaosness is still very omnipresent, treating you with fast bursts of drums frenzy, chainsaw-like riffs, screaming whammy guitars and vocals that sound like a rabid dog on vitriol.
The album almost precisely clocks in at 30 minutes, which is exactly enough to leave the listener bewildered of what’s just happened. You knew the album would sound like a sledgehammer bludgeoning your skull, and still you are very happy. Just like that bicycle on your 7th birthday, when unwrapped, it was still a great fckn present!
