(written by Islander)
Before we all barge or stumble our way into the weekend we have one more song premiere to share with you, an eye-popping track named “Senescence” from a forthcoming five-song EP by the Atlanta-based death metal band Abyssalis.
Entitled Adaptation, the EP will be released by Transcending Obscurity Records in an album-length package that also includes the band’s 2023 debut EP The Mountain, making for an 11-song statement of Abyssalis‘ capabilities.
The song you’re about to hear draws from different wellsprings of death metal, creating a heady concoction that’s viciously demented, technically virtuosic, eerily unearthly, brutally bludgeoning, and as brilliantly glittering as the cover art.
The band’s technical pyrotechics are most notable in the near-lightspeed drum performance and the fleet-fingered nimbleness of a warm-toned bass, but the bursts of swallow-like guitar-darting stake out their own case as well.
Yet the song is far more than blizzards of beats and frenzies of notes. The guitars brazenly blare and miserably throb as well as frantically quiver, and the music also ethereally glistens and soars, eventually transforming into a diaphanous and mesmerizing cascade of astral elegance.
That phase seizes attention through the stark contrast it creates with the head-spinning savagery that precedes and follows it, but an ensuing guitar solo is even more riveting, creating an exhilarating channel-shifting experience of rapidly swirling brilliance that links arms with the music’s ethereal and alien aspects.
Across these various phases (except the astral one) the vocals of Mac Smith are a raging and roaring presence, a combination of monstrous gutturals, sinister snarls, bay-at-the-moon howls, and berserk screams.
ABYSSALIS:
Josh Steverson – Guitars
Mac Smith (Eschaton, Apogean) – Vocals and lyrics
Jack Blackburn (Unaligned, Killitorous) – Drums
Cole Daniels (Fleshbore, Unaligned) – Bass
Transcending Obscurity will release Adaptation on an 8-panel digipak CD edition, and digitally, along with lots of apparel options and other merch, with everything featuring the extravagantly colorful cover artwork by Justin Abraham (Inanimate Existence, Equipoise, Arkaik). T.O. recommends Abyssalis for fans of Soreption, Eschaton, Fleshbore, Decapitated, and Demon King.
After the links we’re also including videos for two previously released songs from the new EP, the title track and “Valholl“.
PRE-ORDER:
https://abyssalis-label.bandcamp.com/album/adaptation
http://transcendingobscurity.aisamerch.com/
http://eu.tometal.com/
ABYSSALIS:
http://facebook.com/abyssalis.official