In Umbra Malitiae Ambulabo, in Aeternum in Triumpho Tenebraum

This is a sonic hell, very disturbing, I mean that in the most endearing way.

The single track on this full length is a hefty listen, but a good one. I don't even know how to describe this, its like blackened drone noise metal. Okay so the 1st thing I would like to point out is the vocals, they are very tortured and just demented sounding, They sound less like vocals and more like you just walked into a murder taking place, so if that's your cup of tea you will love the vocals here. I'm not even sure there are vocals or if its just cry's of demented pain. Next thing I want to talk about it the guitar work and production they are both just grisly and noisy, in a good way. There is this little organ that starts at 10:04, one of the best uses of a organ I have ever heard in black metal, one of the only ones I have heard to be honest it sounds very good and just makes the atmosphere on this album even more demented and creepy. The power electronics element are a welcome addition as well.

All of them comes together to form this crushing and evil sounding song that honestly sounds like Gnaw Their Tongues before Gnaw Their Tongues was a thing. The harsh environment is a abrasive yet pleasant listen, this could easily could be a soundtrack to a murder scene the environment and imagery this album concocts is just, as Euronymous put it "The audial essence of Pure Black Evil". this album makes you feel like something bad is going to happen to you. The whole thing is really weird and just all over and hard to listen to, but in a very good way. There are conflicting sounds and overloads of audio its just a really demented and disturbing peace of art.

In conclusion, this album is worth your time if you are a fan of black noise or want to find something weird and unlike many albums out there.

A quiet and very deep piano melody is our entree into this particular sonic Garden of Evil in which we spend about an hour wandering through a network of caves and cells in which the only human inhabitants appear to be condemned criminals screaming and breaking down as they are being subjected to unspeakable tortures. The music on this album is completely improvised and I believe the duo Abruptum recorded it all in one take so it's a very sprawling journey that IT and Evil take us on with very few definite melodies, riffs, rhythms, beats and other song-based elements that act as sign-posts or guides.

The rhythms that do appear (and there are quite a few) are usually slow and ponderous, and as they progress they seem to get slower and more sluggish until they are almost collapsing but never actually fall apart. Evil's guitar-playing mostly consists of long drawn-out slash drones and almost-but-not-quite melodic sequences which don't repeat throughout the music. It turns that vocalist IT does all the screeching and agonised yelping: you may have heard of the legend in which IT got burnt, electrocuted and tortured in the studio whenever Abruptum recorded an album, and while I think such stories are extremely unlikely, still, when you hear IT shrieking for all he's worth, you wonder how he is able to keep up this level of crazed babbling and crying for over an hour.

As with a lot of improvised music, there are moments where there doesn't appear to be much going on and all we get is dark and gloomy atmosphere which is a necessary background to what Abruptum are doing. Then all of a sudden we have inspired sequences of ponderous drumming and shards of guitar tone in heavy pulsing rhythms and IT starts to blubber and gag and cries out the name of Satan repeatedly in a delirious haze. The heavy lumbering rhythms can be very trance-liek and it's possible that IT is in some kind of a trance state similar to what people in certain religious ceremonies in parts of India and the Philippines go into before they whip themselves or stick skewers into their tongues and cheeks, or through their arms and legs: that would account for IT's prolonged state of agony and his single-minded dedication to keeping it at that level for an hour, and the strange murky ambience that seems to emanate from this recording.

Towards the end we start getting some industrial ambient effects (though there are ambient effects throughout this album, they are not very prominent) involving steel springs and some running water noises. The rhythms actually rev up after a period of quiet and another round of torture starts for IT. The music keeps clanging and speeds up with thrashy drumming and at five minutes short of the hour, violin joins in with thin, high-pitched squeaking amid the clashing percussion.

The album certainly is an endurance test and even I can't bear to play it all that often as it is very intense. The production is fairly basic and there is a slight echo all the way through which serves to heighten the impact of everything you hear and increases the tension. The music assumes a dramatic, almost operatic quality. You have to marvel at the musicians' sheer dedication or mania to produce such a long and sustained work of aggression and pain even if you can't agree with the result. The guys appear to be continuously communicating something or communing telepathically with each other throughout the recording - if you listen very carefully, IT does not scream or babble on his own, he always starts going off his brain when the music has already embarked onto yet another torture session - and for them to maintain this level of communication, however they do it, for 60 minutes to me is quite amazing.

However, the lack of a definite musical structure and as a result the lack of build-up, climax, resolution and come-down in this music means that this album won't suit most listeners. The music can be very confusing and frustrating for people who like their music to have tension-releasing elements and closure. I recommend this album only to people who are familiar with fairly unstructured music and who know something about improvised music and how it is done - not all improvised music is done "on the spot", the musicians usually have a goal in mind (not apparent on "In Umbra Malitiae ..." though) and there may be "rehearsals" - and what musicians sometimes put themselves through to make this kind of extreme music. If you fancy yourself in this category of listener, get this album and see if you, like IT, can last the distance!

There is a certain uneasiness to this record. The debut of Abruptum was a cacophony of pure evil on a biblical scale. This opus has a somewhat different nature in that it is more into the background. There is not so much violence as one would expect from "the essence of pure black evil". Instead, it is ambient and very nauseating! The horror of that which is called "evil" eats away at your nerve-ends.

It sure is not for those who like to endulge themselves in harmonious musical creations. It does however puts me in a trance. Even on the most sunny of days in spring, it can tip you over from the edge of your sanity.

Musicianship? Riffs? Perfect timing? Nothing of the sort. It is anti-art, an expression of hideous emotion. Sometimes I wish that they made the drumbeat a little faster. Fortunately, they didn't, because it truly adds to the horrific, nauseating uneasiness of the endresult.

I think Euronymous put it best when he said "Abruptum is the audial essence of Pure Black Evil" during an interview conducted by Faust after signing them to his infamous label Deathlike Silence Productions. They are arguably the most twisted, deranged and obscure band to surface from the Scandinavian black metal movement of the early 90's and remain legendary today for their bizarre form of "black noise". To listen to a mid era Abruptum album completely through is an experience to say the least. This piece in particular is a single hour long anthem of utter darkness and terror.

If most black metal were comparable to a punch in the face, Abruptum would be like someone creeping up behind you, slowly drilling a hole in your brain and pouring acid in it as it proceeds to vomit blood all over you. The music is painful, slow and disjointed with the only semi consistent part being the drum beat. While they are slowly pounding away on the drums seemingly random guitar sounds, feedback and horror-esque keyboards jump in and out of the music. On occasion down tuned guitars will play along with the drums in a more 'musical' sense, which is seemingly the last trace of their earlier demo material that appears on these mid-era albums. Comparable in certain respects to extreme doomsters Khanate. As all of this is happening their vocalist, the aptly named IT, wails, moans, cries, grunts and shrieks some of the most tortured, desperate and just plain unsettling sounds I have ever heard come from a human beings throat. He is one of those special vocalists who has a completely inhuman and insane way of using his voice. If someone were to lower a microphone into the bowels of hell and press the record button, I’m sure the result would sound very much like Abruptum.

As much as I love this album, there are certain aspects which I don’t like. Firstly, for this type of "anti-music" which is heavily focused on atmosphere, I think it would benefit from being produced a bit better. I suppose this could be their intention, but when listening to the CD it sounds as if it were recorded in a tunnel. However that is just a minor inconvenience and can not bring down the album. The only other part which can be a slight annoyance is that this music requires a very particular mood to listen to. This is just one of those albums that you listen to at 2 in the morning by yourself with all the lights off when you know there wont be any distractions. This isn’t a CD you would put in your car while driving to work or listen to with some friends in your basement.

Despite its flaws, this album is absolutely phenomenal. Not quite perfect, but very far above being average and definitely refreshing. If you're looking for blast beat driven "in your face" styled black metal I would not recommend this album to you. However, if you are into the more abstract and experimental side of things, I think you will quite enjoy this album.

Hailing from Sweden, Abruptum is not unknown to anybody who enjoys good audio-terror/noise recordings. I've sat here a couple of hours and thought of a proper way to review something like this, but it is pretty hard. Let's take it step by step, shal we?

In this particular recording Abruptum consists of IT (Tony Särkkä) and Evil (Morgan Håkansson, also in Marduk) creating a soundtrack of your nightmares. “Listening to them can be described as lying in bed with 43 degrees fever while having someone slashing your wrists.” This is how Regain Records describe Abruptum’s pieces. I can say that this is exactly the way Regain describes it. This piece is also very different from Abruptum’s demos which have some sort of linear structure with some sort of death-ish riffs and deep growls. This recording has pretty much no regular riffs or a rhythm throughout. It is just 60 minutes of pure audio torture. It’s been said that the members were torturing themselves while recording their pieces and that I think that can be true, the screams are no regular growls which Abruptum overwhelmed us with in their demos and early recordings. These are pure screams that reflect anguish and pain. I think there is no point in debating the lyrics since I think there aren’t any. Instead, Abruptum’s creative minds have brought forth a recording that contains more than guitars, bas, drums and vocals. We can also hear violin, synthesizers and other special effects, but the instruments are somehow sublime, the drums and the vocals dominate the recording, in my opinion. The drums are slow most of the parts here, but that is no disadvantage whatsoever. Another factor that dominates this recording is the echo that gives a feeling that this recording takes place in a dungeon.

The feeling in this recording is enormous. This is no recording meant for the feeble hearted or people who do not appreciate art in general. I consider Abruptum as art, although the geniuses behind it may seem as madmen. This recording is one of those that go down in history as a masterpiece. But that is just my opinion. Listen to it and let your nightmares loose.