ALBUM REVIEW: Black Blood – Abduction
Initially starting life as a one man affair with their debut demo in October 2016, Derby’s ABDUCTION have quickly grown and developed in the intervening six years to become one of the most impressive black metal acts within the UK’s already exceptionally thriving scene. Crafting a far more claustrophobic and nauseating take on the genre than many of their contemporaries, their legend has grown not just off of their excellent musical output, but also their powerful live presence at venues around the country. The band’s fourth album, Black Blood, their first with Candlelight Records, takes the style that ABDUCTION is known for to even more compelling heights, marking a subtle but beguiling shift in the band’s sound that pays dividends without stripping away any of the harsher elements.
Kernos Crown proves to be a strong start, with a crawling, eerie riff setting an ominous tone straight away. Quickly shifting gears into a more robust slab of black metal built around huge, imposing rhythms, sharp melodies and acidic vocals, it manages to retain the darkly hypnotic ingredients at its heart whilst pushing the music into harsher territories, making for a brilliantly immersive opening gambit. Dismantling The Corpse Of Demeter utilises haunting, discordant pianos and jarring guitar work to draw the listener in, and initially takes a mid-paced approach. It’s interwoven with short bursts of of chaotic intensity, with the vocals providing an authoritative, booming exclamation point to the caustic musicianship on display. For the album’s shortest offering, it does a great job of injecting lots of ideas into its sound, being imaginative without becoming too crowded.
The absolutely monolithic Plutonian Gate strips away the jarring influences for a cavernous and bombastic sound, with thunderous, percussive drums, meaty chords, and sonorous clean vocals lending this particular track an experimental feel – a mood that is only enhanced by sliding leads, which add an ethereal, droning twist to this song. As the distortion and cacophonous flourishes begin to creep in, the music suddenly lurches into an ambience-heavy, epic sound, with noisy, frenetic guitar motifs peppered into the mix, before reverting to the headier belligerence that immediately preceded it. The continual pausing of the momentum, rather than killing the effect, adds suspense, making it genuinely dramatic and interesting throughout.
Lightless At The Grand Conjunction explores an expansive, post-black metal guitar sound that was hinted at in the last track, but still possesses a visceral, biting edge that cuts through the lighter components, with arid vocal performances, intricate drumming and eclectic guitars all lending heft to quite a lot of the music. The chanted vocals and powerful, repetitive passages that dominate the song’s second half work extremely well, with the unhinged moments peppered in amongst serving as a fantastic counterpoint. This is a song that significantly departs from the formula of the album’s first half, making it a more wide-ranging effort.
A Psylacybic Death, a bleak and melody-tinged piece of incredibly aggressive, groove-laden black metal, makes full use of bellicose vocals, a denser guitar sound and impressive guest vocals from REVENANT MARQUIS that add a tortured, embittered howl that complements the gutturals perfectly. This is a noisy, hazy piece of music that does a great job of layering a plethora of styles into one place, making this an oppressive but thrilling affair. In Exaltation Of The Supreme Being, with its huge guitar work, tight, punishing drums and diverse vocal range, has a more atmospheric side. Where the previous two tracks seemed to be incorporating a vast array of different riffs, tempos and tones, the sound on this song seems far more consistent, pairing gargantuan rhythmic sections with touches of the band’s grating and atonal elements. It’s a subtle but cinematic approach to the songwriting that lends this final track a magnificent, climactic feel.
Just giving Black Blood one or two spins makes it abundantly clear that ABDUCTION are at the absolute cutting edge of what black metal can be. Whereas many bands either opt to tread down solely the melodic or abrasive or atmospheric routes of black metal, this band have managed to bring together all the best elements of black metal into one album. Even the more polished and crisp production on here – a noticeably more precise approach than the opaque and raw mix of their first three records – accentuates rather than dampens the impact of the music. Much of what is featured on this record is easily some of the band’s best work, and stands up to the lofty benchmarks set by A Crown Of Curses and All Pain As Penance, both of which are outstanding instant classics within modern British black metal. Above all, Black Blood showcases a band that are on the ascent, ready to take the world, and not just the UK underground, by storm.
Rating: 9/10
Black Blood is out now via Candlelight Records.
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