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Abhorred > Wallowing in Utter Chaos > Reviews
Abhorred - Wallowing in Utter Chaos

Demented. - 71%

Noktorn, May 26th, 2008

Abhorred had a weird position of being sort of an ambassador for the underground black/death metal scene of Massachusetts (specifically Lowell) even though no one had asked them to and only like three people seemed to appreciate the gesture. They recorded this one album back in 2005, broke up after the online release of their '07 EP, then may or may not have reformed afterwards. Abhorred was never a band that really cared about notifying anyone but themselves as to what's going on, which is probably the only sort of spirit that could have resulted in an album like 'Wallowing In Utter Chaos'.

Abhorred played (or plays, who knows) a variety of metal that draws influences from every corner of the underground scene, with notes taken from black, death, thrash, grind, and hardcore. It's not that there are passages for each, but rather that all those influences have been synthesized into one catchall 'extreme metal' sound. And weirdly enough, it manages to sound pretty cool due to the one thing that ties it all together: atmosphere. It's dark, warlike, occult, and vaguely medieval, kind of like a soundtrack to the old DOS game 'Heretic'. A lot of times this music seems to be influenced from old traditional doom metal in the melodic department, so you could almost say that this stuff sounds like if Black Sabbath's first album took a lot of cues from Darkthrone and Napalm Death. If anything, there's nothing that sounds exactly like this album out there.

At the same time, all these influences jostling up against each other result in a VERY uneven listening experience. Though the songs are tied together through the common threads of atmosphere and production (more on that in a bit), the album as a whole never seems to settle down or have a definite beginning or end. The riffs have a thrash base with other influences layered on top, occasionally bursting into black metal tremolo or death metal chugging, while the vocals alternate between a throaty shout and piercing screech. You could describe the sound as pretty resolutely oldschool, even though I doubt you could find an 'oldschool' band that sounds even remotely like the stuff on this release. I guess one of the central problems with this album is that there's simply SO many ideas the band is trying to employ, they sort of lose the forest for the trees, resulting in a lot of songs with cool passages that you can't even remotely remember after they're gone.

The one thing that is done perfectly on this album, though, is the production, particularly in the guitar department. I don't think I've ever heard a guitar tone as HUGE as this one; it's as big as the earth, reverbed to death, and drenched in filth, like a blackened drone doom record played at reasonable speed. Drums are pleasantly subdued but also large while vocals are right in the front, like the stream of consciousness lyrics are getting spewed in your face from about three inches away. It sounds great and does a lot to carry the feel of the album.

To be honest, though I like this, I don't listen to it a lot; there's other albums that I can actually remember after they're done that demand my attention. It's sort of a weird curiosity of an LP, and it seems it's the sound of a band which was trying to figure themselves out. If you find this at a show for $5 like I did, I recommend you pick it up; I think this is the sort of album that twenty people in the world will find incredibly compelling and 'get it' far in excess of everyone else. You're probably not one of those people though.