CD Title: Atrocities that Birthed Abominations
Year: 2006
Website: myspace.com/absenceofthesacred
MySpace: myspace.com/absenceofthesacred
Label: None
Featured on: Loucifer Speaks Exclusive
Rating: 9.8 / 10
More Links: Please feel free to discuss Absence of the Sacred in their own thread on the Loucifer Speaks forum.
This album has been the soundtrack to my journeys to and from work this week and I can't tell you how awesome it is to find a Death Metal album that makes me just want to hit the repeat button and keep it playing for as long as possible.
"Atrocities that Birthed Abominations" seems suitably technical, but it's also extremely memorable - and it's this that makes you want to listen to it over and over again. It doesn't get dull and it's very difficult for me to find something about it that requires improvement. The slightly worrying thing is that Absence of the Sacred have sent me two albums to review... and this one is the older of the two - the question is, will they be able to top it? It's going to be a tough job...
Anyway, back to this album...
It opens with "I" which is an incredibly calming and beautiful intro and keeps what's in store for you in the rest of the album a closely guarded secret. Once you here the spoken "This is your God", you know that the tide is about to turn and "The Malignant Strain" doesn't disappoint. It jumps straight in and grabs you by whichever piece of your anatomy that you'd prefer and then shakes you up a bit. This is what Metal's all about!
"My Vendetta", for some reason, seems more sinister than the previous track and this gives the track it's own personality. In fact, all of the tracks here are very different. "Fallen into Obscurity" is the kind of track that I could happily headbang along to, "Our Glorious Dead" has a fantastic Doom-esque intro, the vocals in "Grifter" make you want to growl and roar along, "Deadening the Dispirited" is my favourite on the album... and therefore needs no more being said about it and the title track really seems to bring everything else together. The album closes with "IX". This is an outro that is obviously a very close sibling of "I", the intro.
Highly recommended.