Six years is a long time to wait for anything, whether it’s the release from a military service contract or a prison sentence. Sometimes they feel eerily similar! Welp…after a six year wait ABYSMAL DAWN finally returns with a brand new album Phylogenesis, out April 17 on Season of Mist. Death Metalheads everywhere, rejoice, rejoice! The boys are back, and back in a big muthafuckin’ way, like Radio Raheem big. If you don’t believe me, peep opener “Mundane Existence” and see for yourself. This track is like setting off a Claymore mine in a field full of enemy soldiers and watching metal balls rip through their flesh. Love it!
“The Path of the Totalitarian” is a head-spinning number that shows every member of the band going for it all. James Coppolino nails his parts with precision, reminding people why he’s one of the best Technical Death Metal drummers around, while Eliseo Garcia fires out bass lines like they’re from a musical nail gun, pinning you to the wall. Vocalist/guitarist Charles Elliott and fellow axeman Vito Petroni both go insane as well, making this an instant album favorite. I already loved this band, but this song reminds us just how much they mean business when they throw down.
I don’t even know how to accurately describe what I feel whenever I get to the one-two punch of “Hedonistic” and “A Speck In the Fabric of Eternity.” Both touch on some deep lyrical themes while also packing a Mike Tyson-sized punch, and both are among the album’s best cuts. “Coerced Evolution” features an atypical tempo, which is actually perfect. Meanwhile “True to the Blind” is a goddamn Blitzkrieg, the whole band going all in. “Soul-Sick Nation” hits on mental illness, something we need to be on top of in this day and age, because that epidemic still exists underneath this pandemic, make no mistake.
“The Lament Configuration”, then a cover of DEATH’S “Flattening of Emotions” closes the whole thing out, and that’s fucking great. Look, at this point in 2020 while we’re all at home and doing what we can to combat this Coronavirus, Phylogenesis is the perfect soundtrack to our efforts. There is not one single bad track, and this is a record I can repeat over and over. After a long wait ABYSMAL DAWN have given us an album full of bangers. No doubt this will be one of 2020’s best Death Metal albums, and that is 100% rightfully so. This is my frontrunner for Death Metal Album of the Year!! So, go get yours right fucking NOW!!
STANDOUT TRACKS: ALL OF THEM
RATING: 10/10
