Abigail - "The Final Damnation" (Nuclear War Now! Productions, 2016)

Band: Abigail
Album: The Final Damnation
Genre: Black/Speed/Thrash metal
Year: 2016
Time: 38 min
Rating: 90/100












You can read my review (in Italian) about the debut album "Intercourse and Lust" through the following link:

http://timpaniallospiedo.blogspot.it/2015/04/abigail-intercourse-lust-1996.html#more

2 years ago I reviewed (in Italian) for heavymetalwebzine.it the reissue via Nuclear War Now! Prod of the fantastic debut album of the Japanese Abigail. And now I review their last album, released on CD on 22nd August 2016 always under NWN! to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of Abigail, a band so prolific about minor productions that, shortly after the 6^th album’s release, has spewed forth via Sabbath’s Fire Records a live album in France even dating back to 15 years ago! But the good thing is, today as yesterday, Abigail, guided always by the drummer Youhei and the vocalist/bassist Yasuyuki Suzuki, aren’t really changed throughout their career, showing today again a musical fury and an underground integrity like few others. Furthermore, the cover artwork of their last album, “The Final Damnation”, was made by a prestigious name: Chris Moyen aka Thorncross, an artist who certainly needs no introduction.

So, “The Final Damnation” is a sonic massacre consisting of 8 tracks that represents a perfect compendium about the music of Abigail. Raw, vulgar and anthemic, Abigail plays in general a pounding black/thrash metal able here and there to spew forth some ultra-violent blast-beats that often make starting the songs (like “Blasphemy Night”) provoking a cardiac arrest to the listeners. Then, these ones are bombarded by both an uproar of wild and interminable guitar solos played by session guitarist Noboru "Jero" Sakuma and the splitting-ears screams of Yasuyuki, helped here and there by engaging gang-choruses (like in “No Pain! No Limit!”) while there are even some raw clean vocals (“Sex & Metal”), and all this with a lovable Jappo accent! Alas, fantastic is the production of the album, very dusty in an ideal mix between “Welcome to Hell” of Venom and “Ace of Spades” of Motörhead.

But, for the truth, Abigail offers a lot more than the aforementioned skills. In fact, considered obvious motörheadian-speed metal songs with a rock’n’roll riffing and a perpetual tupa-tupa without knowing stops like “No Pain! No Limit!” (a very similar song to it is "Sweet Baby Metal Sluts"), into “Final Damnation” you’ll find also some moments of pure heavy metal with very good melodies (like in the intro of the opening track, the same “Final Damnation”) and even arpeggios, as exemplified perfectly by the anthem of “Sex and Metal”. But there is also a totally eccentric song like the conclusive 7 minutes tour de force "Holocaust by Evil", literally schizofrenic during its first 2 minutes because it starts in a mega-violent way like no track of the album showing even an oriental riffing, becoming soon after, through a short Swedish crust punk passage, a...ballad interrupted at 5th minute by a loud snare beat just to restart the initial assault before an acoustic intro. Delirious!

So, here you are a fantastic and very intense album with the peculiar style of Abigail made of a mix between black metal, thrash, pure heavy, speed, punk and Motörhead-cult in a unique solution named by the same musicians as "Street Metal", also if showing today some similarities with Barbatos, the black/speed metal project of Yasuyuki Suzuki strong also here of the overflowing soloism of Jero. But the fluid and enough dynamic structure of the Abigail's songs, their ultra-bestial fury and very fuckin' engaging tracks like "Sex & Metal", "No Pain! No Limit!" and "Holocaust by Evil" do the rest for an album devoid of real flaws.

Tracklist:

1 - The Final Damnation
2 - Blasphemy Night
3 - Whisky Coke and Bitch
4 - Sex & Metal
5 - Open the Gates of Hell
6 - No Pain! No Limit
7 - Sweet Baby Metal Sluts
8 - Holocaust by Evil

Line-up:

Yasuyuki Suzuki - voce/basso
Noboru "Jero" Sakuma - guitars
Youhei - drums

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/ABIGAILBARBATOS-208365735859610/
Nuclear War Now! Productions: http://www.nwnprod.com/