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ABADDON INCARNATE
The Wretched Sermon

Transcending Obscurity (2022)
Rating: 7/10

Beginning life way back in another dimension – the late 80s – as Bereaved, Irish grindsters Abaddon Incarnate finally return from the darkness with their sixth full-length opus. It’s been eight years since the last album, Pessimist, and since then Olan Parkinson has returned on the sticks, and Irene Siragusa is now on the bass. Elsewhere, it’s still Bill Whelan on guitar and higher vocal expressions, while Steve Maher brings deeper vocals and guitar too.

I’ve never been truly dedicated to the output of these guys but one cannot question the brutality they have served up over their career, and that’s no different here on a record that provides extra vim, suggesting the break has done them more than good.

What you get here are nifty blasts of grindcore with effective slower, atmospheric parts all married to an almost black metal aesthetic with contemporary death metal flashes. It’s an interesting hotpot of ideas that remains aggressive from start to finish with opening cut ‘Rising Of The Lights’ acting as a visceral barrage of intensity built upon vigorous guitar work.

Throughout this record though the key for me is exuberance; high energy assaults whereby the likes of ‘Veritas’, ‘Parasite’ and ‘Killing Spree’ just batter the ears with their unrelenting dynamics. Thankfully the tracks don’t overstay their welcome, so if you begin to wilt from the blasts a track will abruptly end as if to prepare you for the next snappy onslaught.

The nasty riffs of, say, ‘Shrine Of Flesh’, drift into more maniacal frothing such as ‘Epic Desecration’ and the hyper attack of ‘Gateways’, and it all makes for a rather lethal concoction of rapid blasts, speedy gallops and those fierce vocal snarls, but it remains quite straight-forward with streaks of complexity and Napalm Death-esque battering rams of savagery.

Riddled with hostile death chugs and hasty expletives, The Wretched Sermon simply sets out to pummel from start to finish and it’s difficult to criticise the guys for such potent manoeuvres. Strangely, it is the sort of release I was expecting so there are no real surprises, but if you like aggressive metal that drifts into contemporary Swedish design alongside thrashier outbursts then you can do far worse than this.

Neil Arnold

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