ABIGAIL WILLIAMS OVERSTAY THEIR WELCOME BY PISSING ON THE WELCOME MAT ON IN THE SHADOW OF A THOUSAND SUNS
A big, big problem with bands today, metal or otherwise, is the distinction between “epic” and “long.” Yes, when taking into account the triple-LP progsters of the ’70s or glacial chord exercises of Earth and Sunn 0))), length is seemingly a prerequisite. But ending your album with a 13 minute song for the sake of a 13 minute long song doesn’t always mean said song is going to be epic. Amon Amarth’s latest is a perfect example – the longest song on that CD is under 7 minutes long, but one could not look someone in the eye and tell them that every song on that album is not fucking epic. The same goes for the need for bands to take up all of the 78+ minutes of a CD. There is a very short list of bands that can pull this feat off, and the problem with the CD era is that every band thinks they can cram 17-18 songs on an album and have it flow smoothly. The worst part, of course, is if an album falls flat, it can fall flat for an excruciating 70 minutes. Abigail Williams – the like-it-or-not forerunners of this ridiculous up-and-coming genre called black metalcore – fall flat in an epic fashion, and do so for an uncomfortable amount of time on their latest, In the Shadow of a Thousand Suns. Through 63 agonizing minutes, the band subject whomever is unlucky enough to take interest in them to an unpleasant forcefeeding of derivative black metal repackaged for the Hot Topic generation.
Pared down to 7 or 8 songs, the album may be somewhat tolerable (but still dull and repetitive), but at its almost comedically bloated length, the album is an unlikable mess. Those reared on Mayhem and Thorns, or even those somewhat new to the genre who prefer the likes of 1349 or Nachtmystium, won’t find much to like. The guitars play nothing you haven’t already heard, providing a chilly atmosphere more akin to puny icicles on your grandma’s front porch in Scranton than the frosty Norwegian countryside. And the keyboards on this record are, in every way, unforgivable. First, they’re massively overpowering, as if Abigail Williams did not get the memo about keyboards being the most superfluous and annoying thing about black metal. Second, it sounds like keyboardist Ashley “Ellyllon” Jurgemeyer simply closed her eyes and pressed whatever preset her finger landed on before playing, with a mess of strange, often ugly, and always inappropriate keyboard effects marring the record. And finally, “Ellyllon” is by far one of the most proficient keyboardists I’ve ever heard in black metal, and she has clearly been relegated to being both the token hot girl and the one to add unnecessary ornamentation to the band’s banal compositions.
Like many young bands, Abigail Williams certainly don’t lack the technical proficiency required for the brand of black metal they play: the drums are ferocious and full of velocity, the vocals have more than their share of phlegm and venom, the guitars shred ably, and the keyboards, no matter how unfocused or histrionic, are masterfully played. But the music has no soul whatsoever, instead serving as a reenactment of Dimmu Borgir’s Spiritual Black Dimensions or pre-IX Equilibrium Emperor as opposed to adding anything new or unique to it. Like neo-thrashers or Franz Ferdinand, Abigail Williams are seemingly happy to peddle what was already created to an audience that has yet to hear it (i.e. those new to extreme metal) as opposed to using their favorite music as a jumping off point to create something worthwhile. While a carbon copy can still serve as a document, it by no means is the original, and those looking for black metal should look to the decades-worth of it that came before In the Shadow of a Thousand Suns before considering the bloodless retread that it is. And for the most part, those albums are also a more reasonable length.
(1 out of 5 horns)
-SO
