Rating: 6.8

Country: France

Release Date: 2005

Record Label: Oaken Sheild/Adipocere Records

Track list:
1.Intro
2.End of Hope, Begin of the Conquest
3.Renaissance des Abysses
4.Death for the Slave
5.Constellation du Sens
6.Oe a la Haine
7.L’Appel du Sang
8.Outro

Band Website: Abime

Abime - Echoes De Gloire

Huginn - Vocals/Bass
Count Muninn - Guitar
M. - Drums

Well, this is rawer than a steak that's still on the cow. But is it any good? Well, that depends on your opinion. There's nothing original here. In fact, a lot of the time it comes across as a cut'n'paste job alternating between Darkthrone's Transilvanian Hunger and Burzum's Hvis Lyset Tar Oss. You get the crazy tremolo and primitive drumming from the former combined with the more spaced-out epicness, tormented vocals and occasional drops into long drawn out sections with no percussion. Needless to say, the resulting atmosphere is actually quite captivating.

Presented in an extremely minimal packaging job, this album moves through its 42 minutes without ever dragging or becoming too repetitive. With just 6 songs sandwiched between a brief synth passage and a guitar-only outro (another very Burzum-ish feature), it never outstays its welcome, which is more than I can say for some bands playing this style who insist on dragging albums out for 70-odd minutes and boring the pants off all and sundry. Another plus is that, even with reverb-drenched drums and a piss-weak guitar sound, they still manage to conjure up quite a fairly ear-pleasing sound, much like older Abigor recordings – it's very harsh, but the nature of the melodies causes the sound to become somewhat ethereal and soothing in its roughness.

This is actually quite a surprising album, hearkening back to the good old days of the early 90s when black metal didn't need gimmicks in order to impress. There are no pretentious statements or over-the-top photographs anywhere to distract the listener from the music, and best of all, no 2-page thanks list fellating every other underground band in existence. All in all, a damn good release, despite the obvious familiarity.

March 26th, 2006