Hearing about the demise of Abigor during the summer of 2003 left me with much grief, for one of the greatest and most original black metal bands to ever exist had been laid to rest and not only that one of my favorite bands was gone, possibly forever. During the fall of that same year Abigor planned to release one final 7” record through Dark Horizon Records, but for whatever reasons the record was delayed by about thirteen months, and denying us Abigor fans of what we craved so dearly. Finally though after all these months of waiting the 7” was released in late October of 2004. So here we go the final Abigor release.
The first song to appear on this record is a re-recording of ‘Dawn of Human Dust,’ which took place during January 2003. Dawn of Human Dust already was one of my favorite Abigor songs so to hear it re-recorded and slightly changed is an interesting treat. The song opens slightly different from the original this time leaving out the weird ambient intro that was found on 1999 version. The song is largely faster, heavier, features some samples, and also throws on a little ambient outro similar to the original intro from 1999 version. This is also the only song to feature then new vocalist Stefan Fiori from Graveworm. His vocals are your average black metal screams, which sound great to me, but nowhere near as loathsome sounding as long time vocalist Silenius.
Turning the record over we come to ‘Repulsor (Pulsar 2003),' which Peter Kubik described as ‘the most strange and unreal song that the band ever did,’ and he certainly wasn’t lying there. Repulsor features fast drumming & guitar playing, various odd sound effects, mystic synth melodies, samples, and strange distorted robotic like lead vocals. The song also has an odd sort of industrial feeling to it, but still the song is unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. It really makes me wonder now if this is the sound that was going to be found on Abigor’s next album ‘The Dead White Moonlight Songs?’ I guess will never know since that album never saw the light of day…
Overall I’m very satisfied with ‘Shockwave-666.’ We get to hear an Abigor classic re-recorded and perfected, plus we get a glimpse into the future that never was. Now I’ll just pray that someday these Austrian black metal gods regroup and continue making music once again.
No comments:
Post a Comment