ABYSMAL TORMENT - Cultivate The Apostate
June 18, 2014, 9 years ago
(Willowtip)
Third full-length for this Malta death metal band finds them on new home Willowtip Records, and it's a good fit for the crew's quality, forward-thinking death metal. And this is one one thick, heavy album, with plenty to gnaw away at, and the huge production sound helps bring across the sheer audio pleasure this one holds. 'Communion Of Ejaculation''s mid-tempo double-bass attack is so full and satisfying it's almost embarrassing (and I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall at the band practice where that song title was announced), the production complementing perfectly the bottom-end pummel this band lays down. 'Malkuth' threatens to get deathcore (or, maybe it's that every deathcore band wants to write a song as good as 'Malkuth'), which makes sense as the band does flirt with grooves and breakdowns throughout the disc. I'm hesitant to say that a running time of one hour is a good idea here, considering that when second song 'Host Of The Swine' starts, it sounds like there's just been a quick pause in opener 'Whispering The Venomous Ones'. These are good songs and while Abysmal Torment's overall vibe is brainier than the average caveman death metal band, the individual songs blur together. 30 minutes would have packed way more of a punch.
