Abyssos

Together We Summon the Dark

1997 Cacophonous

Review by Miika Kuusinen

With the growing popularity of black metal, more and more such bands get signed. While a few years ago black metal meant satanic and evil lyrics, these days gothic vampire romanticism is the most commonly and successfully used theme in black metal. Cacophonous has recently signed many bands that have roots in black metal, such as Ancient Ceremony but who do not have a classical black metal sound at all. All of the bands signed to Cacophonous seem to share asimilar atmopshere; One of these bands is Swedish Abyssos whose debut album is ”Together We Summon the Dark”.

Abyssos calls their music 'Witching Metal' but it has a lot to do with vampyrism and incorporates some satanic elements as well. While the music of Abyssos is rather basic blackish metal with dry raspy vocals, I am more amused by their image than impressed or fascinated. While everything in the band from song titles like ”As the Sky Turns Black Again (Love Eternal) and ”Through the Gloom into the Fire” to the artwork and music is clichee-ridden, for some reason the album grew on me the more I gave it spins in my CD player. After the first few listens I was going to thrash the band and the whole album but their rather simple black vampire metal isn’t that bad at all and gets better after the rather lame first few songs. Even though Abyssos isn’t nearly half as grim or evil as many so called true black metal bands, the slightly flat production combined with minimal use of synths and female vocals is still quite far away from the likes of Cradle of Filth and Ancient. However, toward the end of the album, the songs become more melodic and accessible with more majestic keys and memorable melodies thrown in. There are some traces from 80’s speed metal and even a touch of NWOSDM making songs like ”Banquet in the Dark (Black Friday)” rather enjoayble.

It could be said that Abyssos is like a little brother of Cradle of Filth: add a more professional sugar coating to Abyssos and you have Cradle of Filth.

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