Whenever Sentient Ruin Laboratories announce a new release, one thing is for sure: Whether it’s Avantgarde Black Metal, Old-School Death, Industrial, Experimental Noise, Doom, Punk or whatever kind of band or project they drag out of their dystopian hell cellar - it will always be a ridiculously abrasive over-the-top assault on the senses. Or sonic warfare, as the label describes itself right on point in just two words on Bandcamp. Such a concept can of course wear out and get tiring fast if consumed too often, so my personal decision if I want to indulge the call for aural punishment or not, usually relies on the first couple of minutes I hear. Abstracter’s Abominion however had my interest within less than ten seconds!
Godflesh. Skin Chamber. Nadja. Triptykon. Dissonant Death Metal. What reads like a legit FFO list are just my associations aroused only by those first chords. They already establish the idea that the sound aesthetics and taste for extreme metal of the Californian band can be trusted, before you can even possibly know what specific style of apocalypse they are going to unleash upon you during the coming five tracks.
Turns out that it mostly is a combination of Death-Doom and harsh Black Metal, often even at the very same moment, when the abysmal riffs keep crawling, while fast drum blasts roll all over it with the same intensity as in the slow parts, when every kick and hit pummels you into the ground. An extremely purposeful production makes this effect possible.
Set within a vast space and subtly supported by dark ambient synths this relentless, destructive, pessimistic onslaught develops a vortical atmosphere, which throws you around just as much as it inescapably sucks you in. The growling vocal performance also mirrors the sentiment of a maelstrom tearing you apart and drawing your pieces into the void. All this may not be as chaotic as some of their label mates, not as mind-boggling as Ad Nauseam and not as noisy and sludgy as Primitive Man yet, but Abstracter are conjuring a misanthropic nihilism that mocks humanity’s inevitable downfall with an intensity that is definitely comparable.
However the greatest kinship I keep feeling remains the one to Triptykon. There’s just something about the tone and expression of the riffs and the controlled yet still annihilating sound quality of the whole experience that pulls my mind to Thomas Gabriel Fischer at his darkest. An observation which ultimately leads me to the one point of criticism I have about Abominion: it should be longer! Like Eparistera Daimones or Melana Chasmata. This album just doesn’t feel like something that should end after mundane forty minutes.
But then what do I know about the actual timetable of doomsday? Maybe that sucker punch will be even much quicker than Abstracter’s abstraction of it.
It will certainly be less enjoyable.
