Irreversible Disintegration

First impressions are important, but often deceiving, which is generally why it's best not to base one's life on them. It's a foregone conclusion that an impressive album art serves a band well, and that department sees yet another in a growing collection of Russian slam bands profiting from this eventuality in Abnormity's auspiciously timed debut Irreversible Disintegration. While implications that any disintegration would require an act of God to reverse need not apply, the album's title does tend to clue one in that the brutality factor of the slam death scene in general is starting to flirt with self-parody. Nevertheless, there are far worse things out there carrying said moniker, and the verdict on this album is a bit removed from the dumper.

There are two principle things that work against this album, namely an overall sense of sameness that occasionally borderlines on bland, and a very mechanical sounding production. The usual assortment of rapid paced blasting trades blows with a slow trudging slam assault that, while well executed, comes off as contrived. It hits with the solid force of a rock thrown at full strength, but more in the manner that of a singular stone amid a sea of interchangeable ones being chucked at a heretic. This is literally impossible to miss even at the album's inception with the competent yet woefully formulaic "Shattered To The Bone", which sees the guitar banging away on the same 3 notes for an extended period of time while the drums, which sound programmed, carry the song. Obligatory scream notes will ring out in a manner reminiscent of Machine Head, but otherwise there's little to differentiate one chug riff from the next between the blast sections.

Be all this as it may, there are several redeeming qualities to the overall execution of this album that makes it more average than terrible. Much like their Ruskie rivals Abominable Putridity, Abnormity avoids the overly popping drum character and tries to keep some semblance of middle between the down-tuned guitars and the frequent scream harmonics. Sadly, though they do have some technical chops that pop out from time to time, they seem to shy away from really cutting loose and end up hitting similar territory in the guitars and bass while relying on extreme blasts to carry the fast sections. There's a solid sweeping solo that comes in amid a crazed tremolo section on "Mechanical Maggots" that sees the monotony broken up pretty significantly. In fact, said song sounds like it could have fit into what Abominable Putridity did a year later on "The Anomalies Of Artificial Origin", which proved to be one of the better albums to come out of Russia in this style, and this whole album would have been much better had this approach been exploited more.

This is par for the course to anyone with a regular intake of slam death, and will probably not impress the connoisseurs, but there is a slight charm to it that keeps it from being a complete throwaway. Perhaps part of it is the slightly less gore-obsessed character when compared to the style's mainstays, which is pretty much captured in the otherworldly album art, which avoids the cartoonish autopsy visuals that tend to go with this band's musical handiwork. There's was definitely some potential here, but it's effectively buried under a sea of the usual cliches. There is far worse out there, but also a lot that is better.