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Abhorrence - Megalohydrothalassophobic review




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Reviewer:
8.5

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Band: Abhorrence
Album: Megalohydrothalassophobic
Release date: September 2018


01. Intro The Mesh
02. Anthem For The Anthropocene
03. The Four Billion Year Dream
04. Hyperobject Beneath The Waves
05. The End Has Already Happened

How on earth do you obtain legendary status if you have only released one demo and one EP almost three decades ago? And then how do you make new music after so many years that sounds so relevant and splendid? Well, think of this as a "hyperobject", a phenomenon that you just can't get your head around, if I may borrow the term coined by philosopher Timothy Morton.

Abhorrence were one of the groups that carved the path to the birth of Finnish death metal and many view them as an early stage of Amorphis, since it was Tomi Koivusaari's band. But unlike Amorphis who incorporated a lot more melody even in their early death metal days, Abhorrence was a vile beast, totally brutal and unforgiving. Abhorrence in 2018 sounds like a mix of their homonymous EP and The Karelian Isthmus, also known as the debut of Amorphis and one of the finest death metal releases ever.

Titled Megalohydrothalassophobic, Koivusaari explains that the new EP's title "relates to the fear of massive objects underwater? The lyrics combine the mythological figure of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu with themes from the ecological philosophy of Timothy Morton. Morton is arguably the most important thinker of the Anthropocene, the current catastrophic era of human existence. The EP tells a horror story of our age. The music itself we wanted to keep at the primitive level".

And primitive it is. The original line-up plus drumming wonderkid Waltteri Väyrynen from Paradise Lost unleash 23 minutes of pure Finnish death metal, full of hooks and grooves, with a modern and crisp recording. Every instrument sounds as it should and every musician is on point, which is pretty impressive considering that some of the members hadn't been in a studio for a decade or two.

Each track of Megalohydrothalassophobic is a monstrous slab of neck-hurting death metal. "Anthem For The Anthropocene" is a barrage of nostalgic mid-tempo riffs and "The Four Billion Year Dream" showcases the band's mastery of rhythmic changes, with its slow-burning beginning transforming into blastbeating onslaught and then going into the aforementioned The Karelian Isthmus-like melodic soundscape. "Hyperobject Beneath The Waves" is absolutely stunning, starting explosively, continuing with an infectious groove and featuring a suffocating bridge towards the middle of the song. But my personal favourite is the closer, "The End Has Already Happened", a progressive mix of underwater and industrial sounds, cavernous vocals and exceptional riffing, all masterfully coalesced into a big mass of metal submerging in the deepest sea's black abyss. After it finished I thought "damn you, Abhorrence, this is too short, I want a full-length album!"

If this epoch is indeed a reckoning for our species, Megalohydrothalassophobic is the fitting soundtrack for it.

"Embrace the new dark age,
Welcome to the Anthropocene?"





Written on 07.09.2018 by Only way to feel the noise is when it's good and loud!


Comments

Comments: 2   Visited by: 154 users
07.09.2018 - 23:17
nikarg

If you are interested in the ideas of Timothy Morton this is a quite long but also very interesting read.
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08.09.2018 - 23:04
cobrapel
Concept One
The two available tracks are very good
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