Abhorration may be a fairly new band, but its members have been a part of a slew of other acts spanning just about every genre of metal. With this in mind, it’s not that surprising that their take on death metal’s faster and more rabid origins had a bit more polish and precision from the very start. 2021’s After Winter Comes War demo showcased fast-paced and heavy hitting death metal that sounded much closer to early American bands moreso than anything from the group’s home country of Norway. Three years later Abhorration has returned with Demonolatry, which tales the foundation from the demo and refines it further. It’s a quick but wild ride, and while some of the details do blur together a bit anyone that likes the more intense and speedier variants of early death metal will enjoy what this album has to offer.
One of the first thing that stood out to me upon hitting play was how well Abhorration has nailed that rawer, early death metal sound while still keeping enough space for the details to stand out. The crunchier tone of the drums has more of a live feel, and the way that it fuses together with the guitar and bass work makes for material that hits quite hard. But this doesn’t mean that Demonolatryhas an overly compressed or noisy sound that obscures the details, as when you compare it to After Winter Comes War there’s some noticeable space in the recording that gives the songs a chance to breathe as they reach some of their most chaotic levels. On the songwriting front Abhorration has chosen to let things sprawl out, as while the album is a very compact thirty-six minutes each of the six tracks spans between five and seven minutes. This allows the band to offer plenty of twists and turns, moving from extremely fast and precise blasts to slow and lumbering grooves that feel like they’re going to pummel you into the dirt. Songs like “Spawn of an Abhorrent Entity” are a great example of this, as it spends its first couple of minutes establishing a murkier groove before transitioning over to a frantic all-out attack on the listener. The ebb and flow recalls Altars of Madness era Morbid Angel alongside other fast paced and downright rabid early death metal like Possessed and Sadistic Intent, but Abhorration is able to take these influences and put their own spin on it. Demonolatry is consistent all the way through, but “Ai Apaec” and “The Grace of Immolation” stand out the most on repeat listens as the way they move from fast to slow and have a push and pull momentum results in some memorable moments. Admittedly there are similarities between the way each track is constructed which does result in some passages that run together over repeat listens, but there’s plenty here to keep fans of this type of frantic and churning death metal coming back.
With the type of riffs Abhorration is laying down, you might expect their vocals to follow a similar growl or scream pattern as the death metal bands mentioned in the last paragraph. But this is another area where the group differentiates themselves, as Magnus Garathun uses a sharp, raspy scream that has more in common with Revenge or Black Witchery old-school death metal. Garathun has that type of rabid, unhinged sound to his screams that makes them cut through the instrumentation and steal the spotlight on more than one occasion. There’s a sense of ugliness and grittiness to the pitch that makes it perfectly suited to what Abhorration is doing here, and this also keeps the intensity at a high from beginning to end. There isn’t a ton of variation to the pitch, but the songs do give some space between each verse which avoids repetition and makes each one hit as hard as the last.
As someone that enjoys the type of whiplash inducing tempo changes and emphasis on speed and aggression that defined a lot of early death metal, Abhorration’s full-length debut has been dominating a lot of my listening time. It may have some sections that run together, but the seamless shifts from heavy hitting slow sections to fast paced attacks that feel on the verge of collapse work well and there are plenty of elements that have stuck with me. With two strong efforts under their belt, Abhorration is worth keeping an eye on as they are able to capture that late 80s’ and early 90s energy in ways that not every new band can. Demonolatry is available from Invictus Productions.
-Review by Chris Dahlberg