Old school Irish death-grinders, Abaddon Incarnate, first emerged from Dublin's death metal scene in the early 90's and since then have slowly but surely been guiding their helm into grindier waters. The band's first full length, since 2009's Cascade, Pessimist, damn near shipwrecks into the Grindcore Reef. Easily Abaddon Incarnate's best work to date. Pessimist begins where Cascade left off, just as Cascade was the natural progression of 2004's Dark Crusade and 2001's Nadir. These lads not only ground down their emerald metal into a finely tuned death-grind, but sharpened it to a fucking razor's edge.
Track for track, it seems this album has faster blast beats and more of them compared to past albums. Johnny King pummels behind the kit. I'm not saying past recordings featured subpar drumming in the slightest, but this drumming sticks with me a little more for some reason. No choppy/alternating metal blasts, no drab death filler, no boring instrumentals. King brings only speedy blasts trading off with d-beat gallops. I'm probably happiest with Pessimst because even though this is definitely a death-grind record, the guys are keeping it punk as fuck percussion wise.
Where the death metal roots are still exposed in this newest layer of Grindcore top soil are in the guitars, in-which the other three members of the band all play. Guitarists Steve Maher and Bill Whelan and bassist Steve Finnerty use combinations of flying buzzsaw riffs, head banging grooves and interment bursts of naturally placed thrash solos. The guitar tone is perfectly balanced with the sound of the drums; consistent, crunchy, driving, fuzzy with distortion but not too much so that it's chunky or murky. Remnants of younger Abaddon Incarnate still survive in some of the longer, mid tempo songs with stomping riff fests that showcase the musicians' metal know how. There may not be an out of place note on this album.
Vocally, again everyone but King contribute to the mix. Three vocalist dishing out mainly variations of shrill high yells and gruff, low death metal roars. The Grindcore standard.
Overall, Pessimist is Abaddon Incarnate's best album so far. These Irish blasters are tighter and faster than ever, shedding their earlier raw metal sound for a stronger, more up and up grinding assault. The band still keeps well within their traditional standards of dark song writing with an undercurrent of melody; not too far off from Nasum and their many clones. They definitely have a comfort zone as far as song writing goes that you may or may not pick up on depending on how many times you listen to this release or the band's back catalog. But no harm, no foul. This album is a great example of some old schoolers still showing they can kick ass and keep up with the sharpness of today's modern day grind.
FFO: Brutal Truth, Kill The Client, Nasum, Napalm Death
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