ABYSMAL DAWN are back from the sun-drenched L.A. after six years – with another line-up replaced by 50%, new music and a small change to the tried and tested recipe. “Phylogenesis” draws on the “Obsolescence” released in 2014 and turns the listener intensively through the meat grinder over a good 40 minutes. The fifth work of the band around founder Charles Elliott marauds between the mid-tempo grooved rollers like “Coerced Evolution” or “Soul-Sick Nation” and relentless high-speed wrecking balls like the opener “Mundane Existence”. The experienced riffs make the guitar necks glow in the usual way and the drums fire extremely precisely and brutally at the limit.
In principle, 90% of the impressions have been announced. The Californians’ new beating iron builds on known strengths and, moreover, does not afford any major disappointments or surprises. In direct comparison to the predecessor, however, the pieces sound a bit more modern and almost completely remove the often-quoted old-school list of ABYSMAL DAWNs. With the exception of “A Speck In The Fabric Of Eternity”, which still serves manageable cans, “Phylogenesis” is almost exclusively technical. Where the old school faction likes to swing the club of war relentlessly and cruelly tears entire limbs and thought centers off its hinges, “Phylogenesis” neatly fillets fiber for fiber of everyone present … whereby the result – the degree of physical dissociation – remains identical in both cases.
The variety factor remains modest, of course. In the midst of tricky tech riffs, tappings, harmonics and other subtleties, small listeners like the solo in “The Path Of The Totalitarian” or the fine twins in “Hedonistic” flash through here and there. The singing in “The Path Of The Totalitarian” is also of particular entertainment value – if there were to be something like “technical vocals”, this border schizophrenic burp competition with its own reflection would be the perfection of it. I want to get that performed live, otherwise I don’t believe it! ABYSMAL DAWN’s interpretation of DEATHs “Flattening Of Emotions” honor the probably most essential pioneer band of their genre and seamlessly transfer the number released in 1991 into their musical structure.
In keeping with the accurate quality rattling, the disc has been given a high-quality, well-developed, but not too artificial sound. So there is not much to complain about in the end – only the fact that “Phylogenesis” offers a lot of acrobatics with moderate variability makes the thing difficult to access despite a moderate runtime. Anyone who does not feel overwhelmed by this will enjoy this 40-minute ear canal dissection.
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