Label: MMD Records
Date: July 28th, 2023
Well, I think it’s the best time to write a review of the same name like our magazine has. To be honest I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet. Reason is there’s, and always was, really many ensembles with the name Abaddon all around the world, both in metal and punk rock world (by the way one of them, the punk rock one found 1982, comes from my home-city in Poland). To do that we have to visit a continent which’s for most of you one huge unknown region, even more than in the case of Central America (probably except Mexico). Anyways, Abaddon we’re interested and focused on at the moment was born not too long ago, in 2013 in Somerset West, which’s located nearby the legislative capital, the oldest and second-largest city of South Africa – Cape Town. In the whole metro area live almost five million people, so this is as clear as a sun there’s also many bands playing every possible kind of metal you can imagine over there.
By the way, “Statues of Sorrow” is the third full-length, and fourth ever stuff, in the history of the band. Just like the last album from 2020 “Rise of Terror” it’s released by MMD Records. Date of its debut was July 28th, last year and you’ll find it without any problem online. We have here ten songs of pure old school metal played in middle tempo mostly. Riffs are of course sharp like razors and aggressive as well, from time to time a little broken, too. We also have a huge element of melody, which makes this creativity quite easy to learn to enjoy. But don’t worry, it absolutely isn’t something sweet and stuff! At this point old Gothenburg school of playing death metal crossed my mind. Of course there’s also a lot of space for technique, even something we can call solos and so on. And this isn’t only about guitars, but also another instrument and vocal as well. I also hear here and there some elements of other sub-genres of our beloved music. That’s first of all about the first wave of black metal, but even some power metal touches, even if they’re not very easy to recognize. Drumming is variable as well and also in this field you can notice influences of Black or even death metal, but generally this is thrash who dominates here. Probably more American than German school, but anyways. What takes vocalizations I associate them somehow with thrash metal one in the most. Well, there’s quite a lot of influences from death or black of the eighties.
Generally I tell you what. After a second or so listening to “Statues…” I decided to check out how long this album is, i was surprised as hell it takes forty eight minutes and thirty five seconds. I mean, I never felt it can be so long, what’s in my opinion the best recommendation – it means not more and not less, but that you’ll never be bored of that.And just like me will listen to this stuff again and again. In short, if you like such creativity, just love “Statues..”, even if it’s “just” a good piece of metal meat and you probably, especially if you’re as experienced a listener as me, heard a lot of such stuff in your life. But it doesn’t matter at all in my opinion. Well, this is even the contrary, the real power of this album lies in fact that’s so deeply based in tradition! Anyways, during consumption of this tasty piece I feel I use some time-machine and am back in the first half of nineties. So especially if you’re as huge a fan of music like that as me, don’t wait even a second anymore and feel free to grab this stuff. By the way, I hope some label will decide to release it on CD soon. It’s very interesting music and deserves that surely! Besides, such old-school music should be also available in some old-school format, doesn’t it?
