Review by Daniel for Abigor - Totschläger (A Saintslayer's Songbook) (2020)

Ben & I have been well acquainted with Austrian black metal establishment Abigor since the very beginning of their existence back in the mid-1990’s with releases such as “Orkblut - The Retaliation” & “Nachthymnen (From the Twilight Kingdom)” playing a very major role in our teenage household. Abigor were everything we wanted black metal to be at the time. They were dark, brutal, mysterious & totally underground. It was just the recipe for any aspiring young black metal elitist. Unfortunately though, I’ve found them to be a little hit & miss over the years with records like 2010’s “Time Is the Sulphur in the Veins of the Saint - An Excursion on Satan's Fragmenting Principle” doing very little for me however the news of a resurgence has peaked my interest so I’ve headed into Abigor’s thirteenth full-length with a significant amount of hope.

The album starts off well with a couple of the early tracks offering both strength & depth. I particularly enjoy the urgency & aggression of opener “Gomorrah Rising - Nightside Rebellion” which is probably my album highlight. The avant-garde direction Abigor had taken on their releases from the early 2010’s seems to have been pushed to the wayside in favour of a return to the band’s roots. The drumming is very fast & highly proficient while the dual guitar work is as complex as ever but I wouldn’t say it reaches for the dissonance of Deathspell Omega as often as some reviewers have claimed. There’s simply a lot going on simultaneously & the production job is full of high end which leaves everything fighting with each other a bit & the vocals & solos aren’t really highlighted as much as you would usually expect. It's not all that different from Emperor's overthetop wall-of-sound production approach to be honest but it can be a little exhausting given the lack of dynamics & does tend to leave everything sounding a little samey after a while.. Personally I would have liked T.T.’s drums to be a little further forward in the mix in order to better showcase his precision brutality as he’s got some impressive blast beat chops & is capable of some pretty interesting cymbal work too.

There are a few weird moments that don’t quite work scattered across the tracklisting & they sometimes see the song structures threatening to fall over a bit. I’m not too much of a fan of the chanty vocal stuff on a track like “Tartaros Tides” which is the clear weak spot on the album in my opinion too. Silenius’ vocal delivery can be a bit hit & miss as he tries his level best to match Mayhem legend Attila Csihar for general insanity but there’s a decent amount of quality about what Abigor do here overall. They’ve clearly got more technical ability than the majority of the competition & showcase a deep-seated black metal pedigree in every move they make. The use of symphonic elements is professionally composed & executed with an obvious reference to classic Emperor but never seems to overstep the cheese line while the band aren’t afraid to step outside of their dedicated genre for a quick look at more progressive territories on occasion either. Is this the return to form that people are promising? Well, in a word no it’s not but I don’t doubt that it’s probably the band’s best effort in twenty-five years nonetheless.

For fans of Emperor, Lunar Aurora & early Dødheimsgard.