Abscess – “Divine Architect of Disaster” [Song Review]

I am both fascinated and repulsed by death metal. Repulsed by the overuse of grotesque imagery both on the band’s album covers and their songs, tracks that wish all kinds of bloody, fiery despair on the people of the world. Fascinated in wondering how much of this is a put on by the people that write these songs and how much of this nihilistic attitude do they really hold deep in their hearts. It is this fascination that keeps me coming back to death metal – not to mention the unfettered fury and visceral thrill I get from hearing any band play as hard and fast as most of these outfits do.

This came up as I was listening to Dawn of Inhumanity, the new album by the Bay Area band Abscess and then looking at the relatively goofy promotional photo that their label has up on their homepage. They proclaim themselves on their website to be “depraved individuals”, proudly talking about how they were banned from club after club during the first two years they were together, and they sing these evil, evil songs. But their publicity photo looks like a bunch of dudes hanging out in a bar, gamely horsing around during the halftime of a football game. If it weren’t for their long hair and metal t-shirts, I wouldn’t think anything of it.

Hearing them play a song like “Divine Architect of Disaster”, it’s hard for me not to think that behind their rather sanguine exteriors are a bunch of black hearted gents who actual would wish the wiping away of “all traces of humanity”, as Clint Bower growls on this track. You might be willing to take up the cause once you get caught up in the swirl of their breakneck playing. For almost 5 1/2 minutes, the attack is unrelenting, with smeared guitar chords blurring your vision as you get pounded again and again by the rhythm section. Broken up as it is by these relatively bright-sounding bridges, it comes out like the musical approximation of planes conducting a bombing raid, taking a brief respite as they turn the plane around and then returning for another assault. I pity anyone that gets caught in Abscess’s cross hairs.  [ END ]

Run Time: 5:25

Check out the song: “Divine Architect of Disaster”