Abbath Abbath 2016 Seasons of Mist Records Abbath is a Black Metal legend who forged his name with Norwegian Black Metallers Immortal. After Immortal split in 2015, Abbath announced that he would continue playing as a solo artist, only for Immortal to continue without Abbath. The split, reformation and split into two camps has caused some issues, the main one being over the legality of the Immortal name. Abbath is the first foray into the metal world as a solo artist, with Abbath biting first before his ex-band mates. With Abbath, Abbath sticks to what he knows and it isn’t a million miles away from past releases by Immortal. Abbath, along with his voice, also plays the guitar being joined by King on the bass with the drum slot being filled by Creature. As with any solo album, it is more than fine to be dubious with so many musicians releasing mediocre and sub-par solo albums featuring their friends. Thankfully, Abbath doesn’t fall into this category. The production of Abbath has been engineered by Dag Erik Nygaard and Daniel Bergstrand who between them have created a wall of sound, in the true Black Metal style with a huge mass of distortion that manages to swamp everything in their path. Abbath’s guitars are pounding, sawing through the mix accompanied with King’s bone rattling bass with the relentless, technical drumming which has made him renowned on the drum tech and session musician circuit, all this combined with the prowling growl of Abbath slices through the speakers reminding you of what have Immortal their sound. Abbath gives you a sense that Abbath is once more having fun, Abbath sounds fresh and as rejuvenated as he did back in 1993. Abbath opens with the commanding To War! With its exceptionally catchy chorus as Abbath rips through ‘once more into the breach, to war!’ However, it is the lead single of Winterbane where Abbath shows that he doesn’t need the Immortal name to show that he is capable of creating a decent track. It is great to see Abbath sticking to what he knows with him trying ‘something different’ or having to use the phrase ‘it was just a phase I was going through’, if you know Abbath, you know what you’re getting and that is certainly not a bad thing. The follow up single to Winterbane is the sublime Count the Dead. Count the Dead contains a great guitar solo that tears Abbath a new one and only seems to add to a song as it builds up and up to the guitar solo. Clocking in at 41 minutes, Abbath will have you subconsciously banging your head to the beat all the way through. Abbath is relentless and it never lets up, Ashes of the Damned, Fenrir Hunts through Root of the Mountain and are all highlights of the album. Abbath doesn’t stray from what he knows and Abbath is a great first effort as a solo artist. Abbath has released a decent Black Metal full of great songs showing that he doesn’t need the Immortal name to sell records. However, Immortal will also release an album later this year and it will be interesting to see how they counter such a strong release from Abbath. 7/10 Adam Winterbane (Abbath/Dancaster)
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