the black dahlia murder is one of the few bands with seven records or more where there is no bad record to be found. all their full lengths are pure melodic death metal worship of the american tinge. i have almost every black dahlia murder album on vinyl and taking all these facts into consideration it was a no-brainer to order their new effort 'abysmal' blindly as soon as pre-orders went up.
like all their previous outputs, metal blade took care of release matters with 'abysmal' as well. as emp mailorder is the official distributor of metal blade europe, i knew that the pre-order process would go down all smooth. the interested music enthusiast was able to choose between two european colour-ways, which were orange with red splatter and orange with black marble. i took the latter one. there is also an american opaque yellow version around.
'abysmal' took some time to sink its claws into me. it wasn't the initial hit to me like 'nocturnal' or 'ritual', but after several spins it really grew on me. all the stuff i love about this band is there. the fast blast beat attacks, the unbelievable hymnic twin guitar harmonies and those fantastic story telling qualities of vocalist trevor. from 'vlad son of the dragon', the transylvanian lord dracul, prototype of what would later become the modern vampire myth, over lycanthropic dangers in 'the fog' to the the so-called mentally ill in 'asylum'. the absolute awesomeness.
the only little downer is the artwork. i mean, the idea is pretty cool. looks pretty death metal and all, but you know what? i don't like those computer generated images. it would have looked a thousand times cooler, if it was really drawn. i don't know, i'm not an expert and probably it's quite an effort to craft a cover like this, but to me it looks cheap. sometimes these are the little things that set the really great album, which 'abysmal' is, apart from the absolute fantastic album like 'ritual'.
anyway, musically this is the shit. go get it! the vinyl version comes in a tri-fold sleeve, with a full landscape poster and a bonus 7" with three more fantastic songs. the last song, 'der ton', is an odd one. it's sung in german (der ton = the sound) and is about what sweets sounds the electric guitar produces. would love to know why the band chose to sing it in german. 500 copies of my clear orange w/ black marble and the 7" on gold/brown. metal blade. 2015.
