Florida’s Abiotic present their second album “Casuistry”. Whatever “Casuistry” is, it seems to involve large portions of technical riffage in a decidedly death metal framework.
It’s impossible not to come back to the word technical. Progressive patterns are interwoven into bone-jarring death metal with more than a touch of blackness about the vocals. In fact we get both black and death vocals, as this work thunders on ferociously, breaking down here and there, shredding everything around it and full of flourishes. Amazingly I didn’t use the word “technical” in that sentence “Believe the Unseen” heads off into a twisted world. I think it’s the UK band Architects that this reminds me of but there isn’t any time to think about that as Abiotic present their other-worldly, deep and growly scenes. To begin, there’s no chance to get comfortable as stop-start and occasionally but rarely fluid metal is subject to change. This is challenging. Let the buyer beware. Without a break, “Believe the Unseen” becomes “Reanimated Construction”. The technical floristry continues. Those interesting patterns are deep, dark and suggestive of a violent world. “Cast into the Depths” is more expansive but the vocalist’s black metal growls fit in with a widening scene of devastation, technically presented of course. The combination of vocal styles, triggering drums and irregular pattern do not paint a pleasant picture on this gnarly and nasty track. “Violent Scriptures” brings us down more winding paths of metal mayhem and technique. It’s hyper death, hyper technical.
By “Nightmares of Your Conception”, which marks the midway point of this technical death feast, I became more aware of all the technical self-indulgence. It’s like eating a lot of chocolate cake. After a while you become sick and what was a great start becomes a bit uncomfortable as you overdo it. Here the technical fantasy became more distant. After a strange end, “The Absence of Purity” strikes up and it cannot be denied that with the rapid-fire drums, there’s some fast and flamboyant metal going on here. “Falling Into Obscurity” lives up to its title, grinding on relentlessly in the same frenetic style. It’s edgy and still flamboyant but we’ve been here before and I felt the album was starting to lose impact. It didn’t regain primacy as two battering pieces of crunching technical metal take us relentlessly to a place we’ve visited before.
I enjoy listening to technical metal, and I mostly enjoyed “Casuistry” but I have to say it fell of the radar a bit for me.
(6/10 Andrew Doherty)
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