From Cleveland, Ohio, USA comes Abraded: a powerhouse quintet that unleash upon the world their third full-length and long-titled album ‘Ethereal Emanations from Cthonic Caries’. As a little research showed, this is actually old material by Abraded composed somewhere in 2017 and it shows some of the first music that the band has ever written.
And it is not bad at all! From the start of ‘Ethereal Emanations’ your ears are being pummeled by a pounding mix of D-beat Crust and Death/Grindcore. The frantic speed continues with ‘Menticide’ which is a brutal concoction of crazy guitar riffs, blasting insane drumming and the agonizing vocals of Mark Gallon whose voice reminds me of the style of Repulsion or Sore Throat. Abraded definitely have an influence from the dark sound of Incantation as you can hear in their slower passages like on ‘Uroboric Incest’ for example.
The all-out Grindcore assault of ‘Collectivized Enmeshment’ and ‘Compensatory Contarianism’ will make you think of early Napalm Death (‘Death by Manipulation’ era), Agathocles or the mighty Assuck. ‘Theonemesis’ gives the listener a cocktail of Discharge-like punkish moments mixed with grinding blastbeats and a sludgy ending while ‘Mass Formation Psychosis’ will leave you breathless and broken because of its hyper-speed velocity. ‘Cthonic Caries’ strikes with some heavy Morbid Angel-riffing combined with short bursts of grinding madness and the final track ‘Theodicy’ begins with the rhythm section of the impressive drummer and founder of the band Patric Pariano and bassist Brad Moore and crushes anything that has been left of the listener with its sonic Death/Grindcore ferocity.
Abraded’s third album shows the roots of the band planted firm into the hysterical Grindcore of the British scene in the end of the 80’s mixed with US old school Death Metal. The sound production is on a good level, not too crisp and clean, raw enough for such an underground release. In case you are looking for a good old Grindcore blasting fun then you should check ‘Ethereal Emanations from Cthonic Caries’ out!
