It’s summer once again – it’s hot, somewhat humid, and it feels like the air conditioner just isn’t working. While that sounds like a nightmare to most people, summer is also a time of relaxation, of wanting to see what you can do with your newfound free time. Given my current interest du jour, I decided to invest more time into listening to death-doom and see if it will be something I want to add to my music rotation. Cue Abyssal Rift’s newest full-length, Relics of Great Ash.

On first listen, Abyssal Rift isn’t what one would think of as a death-doom album of the old school variety. Unlike Viande and Hrob – the two touchstones that are tied to this brand of death-doom – Abyssal Rift is much more death metal-forward. Yes, the music has more synth in it, creating an almost signature icy tone that indicates a more cosmic, psychedelic outlook, but Abyssal Rift is more about groove and melody. However, don’t let that synth fool you. “Relics of Great Ash” is steeped in heavy, dense atmosphere that weighs down the music, as if everything before it was a lure to get the uninitiated into this kind of death-doom. However, don’t let that deter you from a good time, as Abyssal Rift’s music is cohesive, intricate, and honestly, damned excellent. Even at its most dense, the music has a certain groove that makes you want to bang your head in the middle of your morning commute. Tracks like “The Enlightenment (That Never Will)” and “The Death of God” have a certain gravitas that gives me the illusion that perhaps this is death-doom I could perhaps be into. Although I know myself well enough to know that this type of death-doom may not be something I will seek out in the long run, I still like this style of music. Relics of Great Ash works not only because it isn’t afraid to be cosmic and grimy, but it allows itself to be intricate and melodic, a balance that works very well for its density.

Now, one of the more interesting features Relics of Great Ash has is what I like to call their “reverse barrier to entry.” I tend to discuss barriers to entry a lot, given that I often come to reviews as a first-time listener, and this tends to come up when reviewing albums steeped into the heavier, guttural side of death metal. Usually, first tracks tend to be borderline (unintentionally) unlistenable, weeding out the weak and the unprepared from moving past the first track. Obviously, there will be people who will bounce off this album immediately, with the first track maybe being too strange or not what they imagined when they started listening. However, Relics of Great Ash is the opposite – it’s a land mine covered in moss that hides very well until you step on it. True to its title, “Consummate Design” is a lure that traps listeners into sticking around, with the promise that the music will sound more like this before dipping them straight into a cavernous, almost sludgy death metal that reeks of filth and decay.

In a sense, Relics of Great Ash should be longer than its 36-minute runtime – the music is too dense to be compressed within such a temporal space. However, it’s clear that Abyssal Rift had an idea and executed it to perfection, getting rid of all the bloat that can come from getting lost within its psychedelic atmosphere. This is music fit for an ossuary – it’s dark and otherworldly and lets the listener sit within its weight. Death metal-forward death-doom with cosmic overtones should not be this guttural and dynamic, and yet Abyssal Rift have done the impossible: they have made cavernous death-doom accessible. What a fascinating album!

— Hera

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Relics of Great Ash is available now on Transcending Obscurity Records. For more information on Abyssal Rift, visit their official Facebook and Instagram pages.