Produced by Abramelin
Released: 1995
As if you didn't need another example of how innovative and interesting Australian metal bands can be, here is yet another classic release from a band that, had they been from another other country, would have been hailed as one of the greatest of their kind. Abramelin's self-titled debut album is a demonically heavy, crushingly brutal and breathtakingly technical metal record that wades waist deep in gore of a level so visceral as to leave virtually any other band of their kind reeling in disbelief. The original version of this album was banned by censors in Western Australia and later withdrawn for sale completely until a second pressing minus the lyric sheet was released almost two years later. Simon Dower's lyrics are easily some of the most depraved and disturbing of any ever penned; Chris Barnes has nothing on this man. Abramelin's blood-splattered palette is adorned with sickening tales of paedophilic serial murderers, necrophiliacs and the infernally damned.
Musically, this is a masterful album. By 1995, goregrind was a genre that was already running out of ideas and it would have been easy for Abramelin, a band that formed as Acheron around the same time as Cannibal Corpse, to merely go with the flow. Fortunately this was a band comprised of some remarkable musicians with an obvious if sinister purpose. Guitarist Tim Aldridge is clearly the star here. The technical aspects of his riffing and the complexity of his arrangements are simply mind-blowing. His playing is sharp and brutally aggressive but still possessed of a very clever melodic sense, and his lead playing is stylish in a late-era Carcass fashion. If that's not all, he throws in a gloomy classical guitar piece slap bang in the middle of the gruelling corpse-fucking epic "Stargazer". Behind Aldridge is the faultless time-keeping of one of the country's best but mostly unsung metal drummers in Euan Heriot, a natural and fluid player who blasts without falling back on triggers and tricks. Topping it all off is Dower, who delivers his lines in a bowel-quakingly guttural roar but still manages to enunciate words rather than unintelligible syllabic grunts. Finally, after almost forty minutes of technical grinding mayhem, Abramelin plays its last card: a cover of Dead Can Dance's "Cantara". It's a choice that almost boggles the mind, but in the same moment seems a strangely fitting way to end things.
Abramelin is still held up by Australian death metal fans as one of our greatest bands, and after allowing this album to mince your soul you will surely understand why.
- Misfortune
- Grave Ideals (Nekromaniak)
- Spiritual Justice
- Humble Abode
- Stargazer (The Summoning)
- Stargazing (Stargazer II)
- Deprived of Afterlife
- Invocation
- Cantara
Rating: 95%
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