...from the Depths

And the old school death metal train rolls on. Hailing from Türkiye, we get Abolish, who throw in their collective hats with their first full length. Is this a fact we all need to lose our shit over? Not really, as it turns out.

Abolish deal in a very traditional form of death metal, wherein the infuences of the early 90's work of Bolt Thrower, Asphyx, Benediction and Death form a sturdy foundation. You'll be probably familiar with the combination of a deep growl, old school death metal riffing, chugging midtempo rhythms alternating with faster outbursts as well as doomed-out sections, and soaring lead guitar works. A tried and tested formula that has certainly paid off for the originators named above. However, in the hands of Abolish, it all seems to work only half the time. When they speed things up, the band is in absolute top form, but from the moment the tempo goes down, they become pretty bland. The tendency to draw out these parts also doesn't work in their favor, and combined with the slick, almost sterile production, proceedings lack both in tension and atmosphere. I do admit that execution is above par and the band consists out of more than capable musicians, but the music sounds mediocre and faceless for a good part of the runtime. When the tempo goes up, this feeling improves dramatically, but when the foot goes off the accelerator again, it loses a good part of the intensity that has been built up. The fact that the band also writes pretty lengthy songs is of no help either.

If only the band would have put in more variety into their sound and trimmed the fat here and there, this would have been less of a slog in parts. By no means is this a bad album, but it never really gets going. It sounds too nice for an act into this style, and more grit to the production would have helped as well. The band gets bogged down in their good intentions, which is a shame, because throughout this album they prove well enough that they know how to do old school death metal right.

I guess this is one for the completists out there.