Abysmal Lord – Storms Of Unholy Black Mass

To be a proper death metal band you need to bring something to make think, be it superior musicianship, atmosphere or something that people can’t quite put their finger on. Louisiana’s Abysmal Lord have all three but definitely mostly the latter. Their 26 minute long MLP “Storms of the Unholy Black Mass” is nasty, heavy, intense and immensely charming. It’s five tracks of all hell breaking loose and I love it! Although you may need to sit down and really take it all in. There is a perfect blend of rawness, intensity and never ending sonic assault. Opening track Terrorist Dawn gives you a glimpse of what may happen (imagine the end of Reign in Blood then it settles down to a heavy death metal groove) Full of feedbacking guitars and unintelligible vocals (they did describe them as vomit vox) continues nicely into Gnashing of Teeth which is unapologetic nastiness, simple as. On that note, the roughness of the production, whether intentional or not, to me makes a big difference with these songs, if it was perfectly clear it wouldn’t sound near as impressive.

To some it will sound like noise like a lot of death metal does, to others it will have a freshness somewhere in the dank pit where “Storms of the Unholy Black Mass” resides. It sounds like they are playing in the most awful repugnant dive bar, but its the one where you always have a good time. Angels of Persecution is to me is a stand out track, though I’m not sure any of these tracks should be taken out of context of the MLP. Storms View is again on par with pretty much anything else on offer, the only track that doesn’t seem quite as unwaveringly fervent is the closer Revelation. Maybe on reflection that is just comparatively speaking of the rest of the tracks. Overall “Storms of the Unholy Black Mass” is not for the faint-hearted but if you’re the kind of person that wants to hear something that’s a death,grindcore and black metal all smashed into one, Abysmal Lord would be for you.

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