After six years of nefarious, underground activity, ABDUCTION punctured the broader metal consciousness with their (or, rather, his) fourth album, 2022’s “Black Blood”. A startling introduction to founder and sole member A|V‘s singular take on black metal, it was part ruinous blitzkrieg, part psychedelic miasma. It was as fascinating as it was unnerving, and with an air of mystery that mirrored its ambiguous trippy contents. Three years on, ABDUCTION‘s music has lost some of its self-created mystique. Having taken a long, incisive look at the state of humanity, A|V has concluded that, despite our limitless potential as human beings, mankind seems to be hurtling towards annihilation without a care in the world. “Existentialismus” is the vitriolic and uncompromising response.
Musically speaking, this is a much more direct and destructive record than its predecessor. A mist of psychedelic opacity descends from time to time, but the overt, avant-garde inclinations of “Black Blood” are drowned out by the sheer ferocity of ABDUCTION‘s reawakened assault. “A Legacy of Sores” is a fiendishly conceived epic, superficially constructed from hazy, old-school tropes, but presented in gleaming shards of a cracked mirror. Blastbeats swirl, bleary chords swell, and A|V‘s agonized barks rise ominously above the melee. It’s sonically vast but somehow claustrophobic and oppressive too. These are all good things, of course, and ABDUCTION do provide brief moments of respite from an overall mood of fog-shrouded, frostbitten violence. “Truth is as Sharp a Sword as Vengeance” splits its time between austere, ceremonial doom and blistering, blackened metal cyclone, and canters through several grand, emotional crescendos that resound with humble, heavy metal power. Astonishing stuff.
Equally dazzling is closing colossus “Vomiting at Baalbek”. Firstly, poor old Baalbek! Secondly, and more importantly, there is genius lurking in the convoluted density of this episodic 11-minute epic. It begins at high velocity, mutates into a churning, death metal nightmare, and then motors off towards the fiery abyss with the primitive abandon of Norway circa the early ’90s. Cerebral concerns aside, it is also a song with killer riffs to burn. Each transition leaves its own, unique experiential scar, and the lyrics pour salt into the wound. “Bathe in the molten fat of your predecessors / Swim in pools of gluttony made of thumbs and grinning mouths…” He’s only saying what we’re all thinking. “Existentialismus” cuts deep because it is rooted in glaring truth. “Suckling the ego teat,” A|V howls, “The milk for eternal infants!”
Meanwhile, the sound of the world collapsing in on itself is ripping through the speakers. It might not change the course of history, but “Existentialismus” is an unforgettable roar of indignation from the last chance saloon.
Source: blabbermouth.net
