Abduction – Existentialismus
Release Date: 21st February 2025
Label: Candlelight Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Black Metal, Extreme Metal, Atmospheric Black Metal.
FFO: Behemoth, Spectral Wound, Necrophobic, Enslaved, Emperor, Black lava, Panzerfaust.
Review By: Rick Farley
The highly anticipated new album Existentialismus, from the UK’s black metallers Abduction is the bands fifth full length, being released February 21st via Candlelight records. Poised to push their musical boundaries past the expansive scope of their previous record Black Blood, Abduction has returned to a more stripped down sound but greatly amplifies its emotional complexity with a charged black metal authenticity. Evil spirited, violent, and utterly searing, Existentialismus rages fire with blazing intensity and intelligent songwriting. Small tinges of post and progressive flourishes, creepily seep in slowly like a pitch black ooze, but the overall range of the record remains, unrelenting ferocity. Modern black metal in sound, but with its malignant spirit left to conspire with the black metal bands of olde. It becomes a vile concoction when a band, isn’t trying to mimic the past but rather embraces it and then engulfs it with its own atrocities.
“The most obvious expansions are in the voice,” considers vocalist and founder AV. “I felt that vocally, I had more freedom to express the lyrics and messages with fewer genre leashes. Given the themes of pain, frustration, and fear involved, it made sense to convey that in the most natural state rather than performing to certain expectations. The vocals and lyrics are important to me, so I let them breath and counterpoint the bands playing.”
I included this blurb from the vocalist simply because, the vocals on Existentialismus are absolutely essential to the quality of this record. High shrieks, low growls, cavernous roars, and mesmerizing cleans all are utilized with an organic personality that enhances the records tense experience. Adding different emotions to the often violent music is intoxicating and vibrantly oppressive. The guitars are an amalgamation of bleak, hateful and chaos, always one foot deep in the murk of the darkness ready to fully plunge the listener far into the abyss. The sweeping complexity of the percussion is beyond just that of blast beats and insane fills. The drums are musical, adding more to the spectrum of soundscape, while the low end simply holds the powerful foundations amidst the hurricane of intensity. There is a mysterious uniqueness to Abduction that I can’t quite place, they’re absolutely world destroying, but there’s a cosmic melodicism and maturity that peaks through like a poisoned prisoner desperately trying to find precious air through a small crack.
Tracks like A Legacy of Sores and Pyramidia Liberi are pure violent black metal full of malice and horror. Slightly reminiscent of Poland’s style of black metal, but definitely not more than just a minor influence. The prog leanings on Razors of Occam remind me somewhat of Enslaved before it breaks off into nightmare territory of relentless brutality, and that’s certainly not a bad thing. Honestly, I’m only mentioning these influences for context and reference, this is a well put together record that deserves to be heard.
Existentialismus was recorded and produced by Ian Boult at Stuck On A Name Studios in Nottingham, while the finishing touches of post-production and mastering were handled by Tore Stjerna (Watain, Mayhem, Deströyer 666) at Necromorbus Studios in Sweden. Besides being completely sinister, the record is dense and foggy. It’s overwhelming from beginning to end. This could bog down listeners for the first few listens, but once its sound fully settles into your consciousness, it becomes fully immersible. Also, it’s fucking black metal, stop whining.
Anyone still on the fence with this review, I assure you this is some top tier, inspired, intelligent black metal that is not trying to resurrect the dead, but is building upon the backs of the past with their own esoteric take on the genre. Easy recommend.
(4 / 5)
