And so Abigor reformed.... I suppose I’m not entirely shocked or in disbelief. I mean come on now P.K. formed a band called Saint Satan after Abigor originally broke up, and I’m not sure if I could have possibly brought myself to listen to a band with such a dim-witted name. Therefore it’s good to see Saint Satan was buried and P.K. felt the hunger for Abigor and got things rolling once more.
Surprisingly P.K. enlisted the services of old member T.T. for additional guitar duties and drum work, and brought in new vocalist A.R. Now keep in mind this isn’t a turn back the clock album or a return to roots album, this is simply a new Abigor album, and like most of Abigor’s work it differs from previous outputs.
‘Fractal Possession’ is undoubtedly worlds apart from the material from the early 90’s, but there are definitely similarities to be found to 2001’s ‘Satanized’ and the 7” record ‘Shockwave-666.’ True these ten songs are black metal, but this is black metal with a heavily industrialized and futuristic edge with lots of odd industrial sound effects, weird synth melodies, samples, ambient sections, sudden breakdowns, drums that sound programmed, but are apparently not, and a diverse vocal performance from A.R. Basically think of it as those two previous mentioned recordings taken to the next level.
The album is interesting because it has the more typical speedy Abigor sound present, but as I said before there are lots of sudden shifts to slower passages or just weirder territory. These songs are not nearly as melodic as the bands earlier songs, but indeed P.K. and T.T. prove to be still competent guitarists, but you have to listen carefully since there’s so much going on during them. This diversity in the music may also be confused as a chaotic mess of noise, and admittedly I thought the same at first. However the more I listened to it to the more I got use to it and noticed everything. So please don’t listen to this album and decide, this one requires a handful or so of listens before things really click. Also don’t, please don’t listen to this album with the bands past in mind.
As for A.R.’s vocals, they primarily consist of a standard black metal rasp, but there are also lots of spoken parts and also portions where odd effects are added to his voice. Okay so he’s not Silenius and no one is better than Silenius, but A.R. is better than Thurisaz. Another topic of interest is P.K.’s lyrics, which as always are heavily influenced by his Satanic beliefs, but never do they sound as corny as say Dark Funeral or other bands that take their Satanic worship a bit too far. Rather P.K.’s lyrics have always sounded much more poetic and well thought out, and he continues that here.
One final aspect to point out is that the album comes in a sort of digi-book with various peculiar photos inside and excerpts of the lyrics, plus an interesting band photo in the back.
Naturally this isn’t the album most Abigor fans will be expecting, but as I said earlier give it several listens under a variety of moods and you’ll see with time that this is an admirable release from the Austrian legends who so charismatically claim in the booklet ‘Abigor play true Austrian Black Metal exclusively.’
No comments:
Post a Comment