(We present Todd Manning‘s vivid review of the second album from the deliciously demented Midwest US band Abhorrent Expanse, which will be released tomorrow by Amalgam Music.)
For all the talk of demons and quantum physics and Lovecraft and heavy metal, how many bands can actually take you outside mundane human experience? You may love Judas Priest as much as the next person, but listening to them isn’t going to warp your sense of time and space and take you to other dimensions. Conventional song structures might just be for conventional lives.
Arriving from the Midwest by way of R’lyeh, Abhorrent Expanse‘s journey began with 2022’s Gateways to Resplendence, a stunning hybrid of extreme metal and avant-garde improvised music. Now, in 2025, they’ve returned with Enter the Misanthropocene, due out August 15th, courtesy of Amalgam Music.
The title track opens the album with requisite madness. For a few seconds, dissonant death metal seems the order of the day. It quickly becomes apparent, though, that these guys are operating at a different level of madness than most. Where Imperial Triumphant are twisting their riffs into insane jazz configurations, Abhorrent Expanse are foregoing riffs altogether. Instead, they create horrifying atmospheres with pure improvisation. Blasting drums complement the stream-of-conscious guitar work the way free jazz is supposed to, only this time it’s drenched in metal.
Shortly after the first minute, the chaos grinds to a halt as an unsettling, electronic drone appears. The band then pulls back into a more menacing but somewhat quieter section, bookended by another drone, then finishing out with more brutal improv.
The unpredictability only increases from there. Much as in their last album, Abhorrent Expanse make great use of dynamics. Every passage of blast-furnace metal is complemented by the quiet and creepy. “Kairos” is an exercise in minimalist surrealism, percussive clatter, and clean guitar dancing with randomized acoustic piano. “Praise for Chaos” spends most of its time sounding like Sunn O}}} jamming with John Zorn’s Cobra.
Much of Enter the Misanthropocene specializes in this quieter yet eerie dynamic. “Nephilim Disinterred” thrives on silence, only occasional sounds interjecting into the mix. “Assail the Density Matrix” splits the difference between the soft and the loud. It’s one of the standout pieces, partially due to the fantastic bass guitar work and the sound of bells or chimes underscoring the track.
“Dissonant Aggressors” finds the aggression again. The drums furiously blast away while a Derek Bailey-esque, free jazz guitar improvises over the top. About halfway through, a wild vocal joins in, taking things into a classic Naked City/Boredoms type of vibe.
The album closes with the epic, “Prostrate Before Cthonic Devourment”. This drone-based piece is a display of awe-inspiring, doom metal power. Black Boned Angel and the aforementioned Sunn O}}} seem like relevant touchpoints, but this piece has an identity all its own. The group’s improvisational interplay gives the music greater focus, and the synthesizer contributions of guest jazz pianist Craig Taborn elevate the piece into a league all its own.
At first glance, Abhorrent Expanse seem to be doing their best to alienate both the jazz and metal crowds, too heavy for the former, too weird for the latter, but there is definitely a growing audience for such hybrid music. Maybe it’s because the metal audience is older now, giving them time to expand their musical horizons. Also, for all the good and ill of music streaming, listeners are able to experiment with genres they may have never been exposed to before, not risking wasting money on physical media that they realize they dislike only after they bring the product home. Horizons are broadening. Either way, there is a niche for Abhorrent Expanse, and they are bound to delight those who are on the hunt for this kind of album.
https://www.amalgamusic.org/catalog/physical/enter-the-misanthropocene-abhorrent-expanse
https://abhorrentexpanse.bandcamp.com/album/enter-the-misanthropocene
https://www.instagram.com/abhorrent_expanse
https://www.facebook.com/amalgamusic