Absu albums are sort of a mixed bag for me. I’m not really a huge fan of blackened thrash in general, but on the other hand there are so many things to like about these guys: the occult subject matter, great album cover art (the latest is by Polish artist Zbigniew Bielak), the fact that their drummer is also thier vocalist and lyricist, and seriously bad ass songtitles like ‘Earth Ripper’ and ‘Skyring in the Spirit Vision’. They’re one of those bands that I don’t go out of my way to listen to, but their releases usually contain at least a couple tracks that are undeniably awesome even to picky listeners like me.

The band’s latest release Abzu, the second part of a planned trilogy, is no different. The blistering opener ‘Earth Ripper’ has a little too much thrash in it for my tastes, but it nevertheless contains some killer technical riffing. ‘Circles of the Oath’ and ‘Abraxas Connexus’ are both superb and are easily the highlights of the album for me, while the rest of the album carries a similar intricate riffing style but doesn’t quite have the impact of those two tracks. The album itself is pretty short with only six tracks, but the closer is a fourteen-minute slab of chaos that pretty much makes up for the lack of length. I’m not going to attempt to rank this among Absu’s other work, but with the brilliant musicianship and blackened viciousness on this album I’m pretty sure it measures up.

» Buy Abzu from Amazon.com