A few days ago I was writing about how I was wrong about an album. The narrative was something like this: I thought the album sucked because of one thing and couldn't get passed it - revisit 10 years later and the album is awesome. With Denouement the exact opposite happened.
I remember loving this album when it first came out. The cover is striking and brings to mind the bloodrust atmosphere of Silent Hill. I instantly fell in love with the album when it dropped and then forgot it existed.
I came back to it last year and was a bit lack luster on it. I decided to really spend some time with the album this week to see if I could recapture the love I had for it before... and it completely lost me.
Abyssal play a dissonant form of black/death metal that really tries to have a thick atmosphere and interesting idea's. Unfortunately, it just can't reach those lofty goals on Denouement. The dissonance is there throughout most of the album, but it feels forced... nothing feels like it comes natural on the album. I have a hard time telling one song from another, everything runs together and this feels more like a 50 minute collection of individual riffs stitched together rather than actual songs or a larger concept.
Some of those sections/riffs are really well done and fit the promise that the cover gives. I'll start getting into it and then it will suddenly stop and transition into something completely different and completely lose me. This happens over, and over, and over again... and it sucks. I really want to like this album.
There are some very cool idea's here, there's even a sample from some Silent Hill music towards the middle of the second side of the album. All the ingredients for a fantastic album are here... they are just put together in a way that I can't get into. Maybe I'll try again in a few more years.
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