This is the debut album from Bavarian metallers 7th Abyss and I have to say it’s a bit of a departure from what I generally expect from folk/Viking/pagan metal label TrollZorn. The PR sheet went on about technicality, sophistication, melancholy melodies and ‘varied vocal styles’ which didn’t help much. The bleak intro was promising kind of the same way; it could have ushered in anything from a Katatonia style grimness to a proggy exploration.
Well I probably should have paid more attention to that ‘varied vocal style’ bit as ‘Lost Eternity’ bustles in briskly on a nice melody and driving riff with gruff vocals, good kinda groove metal and then that huge chorus and achingly catchy melody drop in from nowhere with clean crying, emotive vocals and…. Yep. It’s that style. Modern, crisp, technical, highly melodic, highly commercial mainstream metal/emo. I persevere but apart from the cute title of ‘Don’t Take Blowjobs From The Prime Time Whore’, by the time I get to ‘Despaired’ I… er.. have, realising I am hopelessly mismatched with them. Just not my kind of thing; I just don’t even get why people still want to make music like this.
So it’s time to try and be objective here instead. So a lot of spins and concentration later…
That’s where you find a lot of plus points for 7th Abyss. That ‘technical’ is a good word for summing up how tight these guys are; precision nailed riffs and breakdowns and some fine drumming which doesn’t sound over-triggered and with an actually excellent production gives a bright and hard as nails sound. The vocals, lead and backing, are truly varied from death/hardcore style vocals, to rough and gruff metal singer and clean air hookline-happy choruses and are well thought out and put together. Pace is interesting too; more often than not this gallops along at the modern thrash velocity and approach of Reign Of Fury, a not unreasonable vague ball park band in some ways. There’s the influence of modern melodic, technical death metal as well, that rare-but-there bit of groove metal riffing and the emocore fast chug and huge clean chorus thing, all bound together by those thick melodic guitar runs. So actually if you like this kind of thing there is a lot to be very happy with here. They can also write songs. Now admittedly to me the choruses and lyrics tend to blur together but, as I say, it’s not my kick and from what I’ve heard from similar bands (a surprising amount due to varied friends of differing metal subdivisions) I think fans of modern commercial metal with the thrash/groove/emocore style would get this quite a bit.
Me? I’ll just leave them to explore it. It’s very good and very accomplished at what it does, just what it does, does nothing for me I’m afraid. Sorry guys, but there again I’m not your target audience anyway so with luck and a fair wind that audience will find you.
Not entirely sure how to score this but:
(5/10 Gizmo Probably 7.5/10 if you get this kind of thing)
https://www.facebook.com/7thabyssband
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