First things first, that artwork: a hulking antediluvian fish bearing down with spread fins and tangled tentacles on the tiny figure illuminated in the depths. If that doesn’t indicate musical magnitude I don’t know what does. Abyssius, on their debut, self-titled LP, explore the concept of one overcoming the confrontational nature of life’s meaninglessness—just as that behemoth looms, so does the bleak and hollow void. Additionally, The project’s members span the globe from Taiwan, to Norway, to the US, making this conceptual artwork an impressive collaborative effort. And the ambition doesn’t stop there, as the group state an explicit goal of “bring[ing] something new” to the genres of technical and melodic death metal. All very exciting so far, but just what are Abyssius, and Abyssius, made of?
Abyssius belongs to that subgenre of technical death metal concerned first and foremost with melody—in particular, melodies of the high-reaching, major-key inclined variety. Fallujah is an especially close comparison with the album’s recurring synthy plucking and twisting, burbling guitar lines (“Dreadnaught,” “Hollow,” “The Animus and the Anima”). But also close touchstones in this regard are The Zenith Passage and Inanimate Existence, with layered, vaguely dancing themes that drift into major keys as they develop (“Dreadnaught,” “Everfall,” “Nihil”). Yet Abyssius also show their ability to shapeshift through a side of their sound that feels strikingly inspired by The Black Dahlia Murder (“Ripped Apart”). That being said, the core of Abyssius remains somewhat surprisingly hopeful and uplifting. For every passage of melancholia (“Hollow,” “Nihil”) or malevolence (“Ripped Apart”) there are a dozen of buoyant gaiety (“Dreadnaught, “Everfall”), frequently shifting one to the other. And throughout, refrains drive on in the nether zone between urgency and euphony (“Dreadnaught,” “Hollow,” “The Animus…”). These optimistic tones make for an easy listening experience that belies much of the technicality that’s going on.
Because Abyssius is certainly technical, and manages to remain respectably so without straying into tedious wankery. Solos and bridging fills always manage to twist themselves back to the main, uniformly simple refrains, or sometimes keeping their ascendant restlessness to a thematic flourish. And it’s when things appear the most basic that sections really stick—often, encouragingly, occurring on choruses, like the mournful clean-screamed duet on “Nihil,” and the satisfying twin guitar twanging of “Ripped Apart.” Yet while Abyssius clear the hurdle of over-complication in their technicality, they stumble on that of colorlessness. Guitar lines miss the triumphant and gripping, sometimes by inches, and end up falling flat due to their frustrating proximity to greatness (“Dreadnaught,” “The Animus…”). Anodyne meandering dominates songs, at its worst falling into chirruping repetitions that grate with bounciness and sugary tones as they frustratingly take the lead over the briefer, compelling melodies (“Everfall,” “Nihil,” “The Animus…”). This isn’t just my allergy to major keys; even the minor here is either weakened by unmemorable fluttering or diminished by the floaty or jaunty main melodies (“Hollow,” “Nihil,” “The Animus…”). There remains a gap between the compositions Abyssius serve, and the compositions they could have served, with some tweaking.
The technicality, and indeed the breadth of approaches are consistently impressive, but given the persistence of blander, upbeat themes, the whole ends up feeling uneven. This album is tonally all over the shop. With cuts like “Ripped Apart” serving an energetic and assertive urgency, and elements of “Dreadnaught” and “Nihil,” for example, striking with ardency, far too much of the remainder feels practically wishy-washy. The synthesized atmospheric guitars bring some brilliant moments of ambient clarity and presence, but they’re not enough to save compositions from themselves. At least Abyssius know how to edit. Songs, despite their itinerancy, are snappy, and the total runtime only just exceeds half an hour. This makes it easier to forgive the—to me—jarring jumps between bubbly and brutal tones.
Your opinion of Abyssius is very likely going to rest on your preference within technical death metal. But regardless of where one falls on the major-minor key bias or progressive vs cut-throat tech-death spectrums, Abyssius remains a little confused. On the one hand there’s plenty to salvage to make for a decent easy-listen debut. On the other, this feels like too near a miss at most every turn not to be damningly frustrating. Abyssius possess the potential, they just haven’t realized it yet.
Rating: Mixed
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: ~260 kb/s mp3
Label: Self-Released
Websites: abyssius.bandcamp.com |
Releases Worldwide: January 26th, 2024
