Style: Experimental black metal, industrial black metal, ambient
Primary Emotions/Themes: Satan through technology, theological Satanism, Satan as a cosmic entity
Thoughts: Abigor are one of my favorite black metal bands. Not only do they reinvent themselves with every album, they do so while keeping their sound within the confines of black metal. Sure there are external influences, but the core is always, ALWAYS black metal.
Fractal Possession was my long awaited return of the band. They had disbanded after the rather lacking Satanized. The band was "put on ice" before the Pale Moonlight Songs could be released. According to PK and TT the music was too complex and intricate for anyone to understand. What the true reasons were for the breakup I don't think we'll ever know.
What I do know is that in 2007 this album was released and it was not at all what I was expecting. Previous efforts from Abigor were intricate and required multiple listens. Be it layered keyboards intermixed with the guitars or layers of riffs creating a cacophony of sound that took time to truly dig into. Fractal Possession goes in a different direction than anything the band had done previously.
Instead of keyboards and intricate arrangements, we have strange and uncomfortable riffs played in a sterile and clinical environment. The music contained within Fractal Possession has a highly mechanical feeling... one not meant to be consumed by human beings.
The riffs are difficult to follow. The drumming is chaotic. The vocals are the most human part of this, yet even those sound refined and sterile to the point where the humanity is eerily cleansed from it.
The music does not flow like anything that would normally come to mind. The riffs utilize parts of the fretboard should not go together. Notes are layered in ways where electronics dominate the music, or they pull back the riffs themselves eschew the same inhuman feeling as the mechanical parts of the album. It's not normal music, but it is still within the realm of music.
Fractal Possession was not the return of Abigor that I thought we would get. Instead we got a different iteration that was needed. The band had to be reborn in order to continue, and in this rebirth they fused with the Satanic interdimensional being that rules the cosmos. The resulting album is no less strange and confusing one would expect from such an unholy union.
Written October 9th 2023
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