Word of the Darkest Ages

Crystal Abyss is Symphonic black metal band from Russia. Calling them black metal is a bit generous though, this is far from Darkthrone and Bathory. Its not really even very reminiscent of Emperor. Its like a kids game were one person passes a message from one person to another person over and over again until your left with an entirely different message. Crystal abyss is the black metal equivalent of that. We start with Bathory and 15 kids later were stuck with this band.

The fact that they don’t resemble true black metal isn’t a complete downfall though. Hell, its still better than Dimmu Borgir’s last 4 albums. Its got riffs under those keyboards, not half bad either. Lots of tremolo picking which I guess is expected now days. The drums range from blasting to double bass whoring. Vocals are standard black metal, maybe a little more over the top though, sometimes a few cleans vocals and even the occasional female vocals. The production is very clean, no fuzz hear.

In the end Crystal Abyss is actually one of the better symphonic black metal bands I have heard. That’s not saying to much though, as I haven’t many good symphonic black metal bands.Its also got a castle on the cover, castles are cool.