In our ongoing investigation of deceptive and outright fraudulent extreme metal acts, we pull the rug under a handful of established outfits that don’t even seem to bother hiding that they are after your money first, artistic integrity a distant second - an audience satisfaction not even registering. The more we pull away the blinds the more obvious these practices become. Maybe your favorite band is in here, maybe your life-long inspiration only cares about the dollars/euros you’re giving him/her? Don’t be fooled, there are plenty of honest, hard-working metal bands everywhere in the scene. It’s just that these money-hungry, artistically vacuum units make it difficult for everybody involved. These bands stopped caring, they lost the passion and fire. In short: they Sold Their Souls...
I had some material done already before the demise of Lord Belial. Some of the material was actually intended for the next Lord Belial album, but since we disbanded I changed around all of the ideas into new songs.
I don’t really consider it that much superior. But we KEPT the quality from 1st to 4th album, and that is something that is not easy to do! And I think there will come a 5th album that will kick just as much ass.
Germany has always had a good pedigree in death metal. From the early days of Atrocity, Anasarca and Morgoth to recent examples such as Necrophagist, Deadborn, Despondency and Obscura the country always spewed out quality acts. Despite being around since 1999 and now releasing their fifth full lenght record to date German death metallers Abrasive are a disappointment all across the board. This is an impotent mix of Broken Hope, (early) Cannibal Corpse with random stylings of both (latter day) Dying Fetus and Internal Suffering. If that description sounds confused, that is exactly what this band sounds like. These songs don’t evolve (as a good song is supposed to) but stumble, stutter, grind and gurgle on in a fairly non-descript and directionless manner. The biggest problem for Abrasive is how unremarkable their music sounds. It is obvious that they master their instruments to a considerable degree, yet there’s no signature track to speak of. Like many of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s acts the primary goal seems to be to pummel the listener into submission by sheer loudness, brutality or heaviness, yet unlike the old guard in this genre songcraft only comes a very distant second. Occassionally this band will throw in a technical section, chug or slow things down to a comfortable groove, but nothing can save Abrasive out of the pool of mediocrity they dwell in. There’s no need for all bands to excel in technical skills, yet it should always be the primary objective to write recognizable, engaging songs that contain a memorable hook to pull the listener in. A death metal band should obviously be brutal, dark and heavy sounding, yet even notorious blasters such as Disgorge, Hate Eternal, Internal Suffering and Mental Horror have realized that without a hook or memorable slow section, these songs tend to bleed themselves into a formless mass of grunts and blasts without direction, intent or purpose.comment itWouter 4
