Abigail - Eastern Force of Evil (2005)

A few hours ago I was eating Chinese food and drinking some shitty Japanese beer. With that behind me I figured it was time to add more Asian metal makers to Lunar Hypnosis, therefore an Abigail review tonight!

I'd assume most people know the Japanese band Abigail, surely one of the most prolific bands out there as they have several demos, singles, EPs, splits, live albums, studio albums and I even know a fella that has most of their releases, which is fucking amazing because there really is a lot of them! Largely the creative work of vocalist, bassist and guitarist, Yasuyuki Suzuki, Mr. Suzuki dubs their style, 'Street Metal,' which is some sort of strange mix of thrash & black metal with a Motorhead-ish like energetic-ish party-ish vibe to most of their work, typically with really bad English lyrics and half naked gals on the covers, which just adds to the fun of course.

'Eastern Force of Evil' from 2005 is a somewhat random 7" vinyl I bought back then because its two cover songs of their fellow countrymen, Sigh. 'Desolation' originally appeared on Sigh's first demo and as such I've never heard it before. Musically this cover is raw and ugly and doesn't sound entirely different from the material found on Sigh's debut. Mid-way through some odd spacy keyboards pop in, which oddly enough are played by Sigh's own Mirai Kawashima. Although technically a cover its interesting seeing an old song being finished or completed through a different band. 'Taste Defeat' on the other side of this 7" originally appears on Sigh's debut full-length, 'Scorn Defeat' and its fairly similar to the original although the production is a bit grittier, the drumming & guitars slightly faster and some prog-ish sounding keyboards make their appearance, which were in the original, but sounded a bit different. Yasuyuki's voice seems a little blacker on this track as well in comparison to his usual style.

As a whole this 7" is only for Sigh and Abigail fans, of which I am somewhat of both bands, but for whatever reason even knowing both bands for over a decade has yielded me only a few releases from each in my collection. Weird. Might have to change that. Back to the Japanese beer then.