Abaddon Incarnate’s fifth album ‘Pessimist’ is a monster. Their first release for Candlelight Records (home to Corrosion of Conformity and cult thrashers Pestilence) leaves no doubt as to the band’s intentions of being the fastest and most brutal band in Ireland. A split second after hitting the play button their musical assault begins and the title track churns away at full pelt. Drummer Johnny King (a member of the band since 2007) hammers at his bass pedals with the manner of a man in possession of extra limbs, while simultaneously hammering at his snares in a lightning speed attack, occasionally resulting in sounds clearly inspired by one-time Suffocation drummer Mike Smith. The other half of Abaddon’s rhythm section, bassist Steve Finnerty plays equally hard, his instrument grinding at top speed, not so much bringing an anchoring bottom end – an important part of extreme metal (see early Carcass) – but more adding a layer of buzz-saw noise throughout. The twin guitars of Steve Maher and Bill Whelan, meanwhile shred furiously, their shrill tones cutting through everything daring to stand in their way.
Tag Archives: ireland
OGRE – Bastards Of Death
One of Ireland’s original death metal bands, Ogre released three albums in the early nineties before disappearing. After a twenty year holiday, the trio return with the joyously titled ‘Bastards of Death’. On the surface, Ogre sound like any number of extreme metal bands that you care to mention since most of their material throttles along at breakneck speed while the chosen vocalist sounds like he’s channelling the voices of thousand demons while suffering from a throat defect. If that description sounds either disrespectful or plain silly, then fear not: Ogre take the confines of the death metal genre and have fun with their sound from time to time – and since the band aren’t always taking things entirely seriously, there’s little reason why their audience should either.
Elastic Sleep live shows
On the back of their debut EP, Cork dreampop outfit Elastic Sleep will be playing live at these shows:
ELASTIC SLEEP – Leave You EP
A joint release between Big Tea and FIFA Records, this debut EP by Irish band Elastic Sleep is a like a vapourous retro-fuelled dream. With layers of fuzz dragging their core sound through a technicolour haze, ‘Leave You’ is first class hybrid of dreampop and shoegaze.
New drum playthrough video from Irish tech/death metallers Dichotomy
Prior to the release of their debut album ‘Paradigms’, Irish tech metal/death metal crew Dichotomy have posted a video of drummer Dave Fay hammering his way through their track ‘No Catharis’.
The new clip follows on the heels of a video showing the band playing through ‘All Seeing Eye’, also featured on the upcoming disc. Both clips can be seen in full below.