ABYSSAL RIFT - Relics of Great Ash

Hey folks; how’s it going? Roaming the streets in the June heat—especially in a city like Antalya—can inevitably lead a person into a few existential reflections. And in that very spirit, we have before us Relics of Great Ash, the second death/doom metal album from Abyssal Rift. Set for release on August 10 via Transcending Obscurity Records, the album delivers a listening experience of considerable complexity across its 35-minute runtime, combining suffocating heaviness, atmospheric and gloomy passages, and ferocious solos. What’s important, though, is that they’ve managed to balance all of these elements flawlessly.

Let’s ease our way into the album. Of course, most of you haven’t had access to it yet, but when you do listen to it (and even in the two tracks already released), you’ll hear how they constantly bridge the heavy, suffocating doom sections with more aggressive death metal passages through the transitions within the songs. Rather than simply writing riffs, the band seems intent on creating the feeling that you’re walking through a decaying world. Even if it appears simple on the surface, the song structures are built with more detail than one might expect.

At times, they employ industrial and dark ambient textures. Looking at the album’s themes, it gives the impression of a bleak concept revolving around religion, existence, nihilism, human will, and the cosmic void. The guitars are thick-toned; there are slower yet crushing riffs, sections where the drums support the atmosphere rather than create groove, and an approach in which the bass roams beneath the guitars like a gigantic shadow. Based on the two released tracks, “Consummate Design” and “The Enlightenment (There Was Never Will),” the atmosphere presents not so much doom as the pure dark side of death metal. It evokes the feeling that you’ve drifted into space, your helmet has been punctured, and you’re suffocating. As if even the folds of your brain are cracking from oxygen deprivation. That is, in fact, one of the exact destinations that well-written “dark death metal” strives to reach.

Many subgenres of death metal are built upon aggression, brutality, or technical showmanship. But when it comes to Abyssal Rift, it’s clear that the goal is more about creating cosmic dread and suffocation. The darkness here isn’t the darkness of a classic horror film, though. You’re not fighting an enemy. There’s no escape route, either. It’s more about an endless sense of emptiness, humanity’s insignificance, the dissolution of time and space, and a suffocating unknown. Musically, they achieve this through a number of elements: riffs that seek to generate tension rather than memorability, a constant sense of unease lingering in the ear, drums that build walls without resorting to flashy theatrics, and guitar tones that are not “sharp” so much as they resemble a fog collapsing over you. This achievement brings to mind Portal’s tendency to transform songs into nightmares, Dead Congregation’s more traditional yet equally lethal sense of weight, and Abyssal’s remarkable strength in crafting cosmic and crushing atmospheres.

Looking at Relics of Great Ash, the band has preserved the rotten grave atmosphere of their debut, but this time they seem to have created a larger, more cosmic sonic landscape. My favorite aspect of the vocals is that they don’t behave like a “narrator in the foreground.” In many death metal bands, the vocals rise above the riffs and drive the song forward. In Abyssal Rift, however, the vocals seem to emerge from within the music itself. At times, it feels less like hearing a human scream and more like hearing an echo from deep inside a cave, a growl rising from beneath a grave, or the final breath of something ancient and decayed. The decay here is distinctly organic. The same applies to the guitar tones. They’ve left very few bright frequencies intact. Everything sounds as though it has sat for years in a damp basement. In death metal, tones are sometimes thickened simply to sound “heavy.” But in Abyssal Rift’s case, the tones are not only heavy—they feel old and diseased. As if this music wasn’t recorded at all, but rather unearthed from far beneath the ground.

Good death metal makes you want to bang your head; good dark death metal changes the room you’re in. While listening to Relics of Great Ash, nothing is attacking you. Nothing is chasing you. But the place you’re in feels wrong. And with every passing second, you become a little more aware of it. If you appreciate decay, if you’re looking for an album that follows in the footsteps of Incantation’s cavernous rotten atmosphere, evokes the unsettling void of Disembowelment, lets you hear voices rising from beneath the earth like Spectral Voice, and balances atmosphere and riff writing as effectively as Temple of Void, then Abyssal Rift will grab hold of you, folks. May your bass be thunderous, your drums solid, and your riffs rotten. Stay metal.

HÜS

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