Abigail Williams – A Void Within Existence
Review by: Chad Pab
Review Score: 7
The new Abigail Williams album “A void within existence” is a hybrid of doom, ambience and black metal. It opens with one of my two favourite picks on the album, “Life Disconnected” starting with a dissonant slow groove that picks up into a black metal pulverizing riff reminiscent of the second wave of black metal. “Void Within” follows up with black metal punishment, being another playlist worthy track on the album for me.
In “Still Nights” the guitar had a neat mechanical riff that I would like to see played live, because it sounds like it’s all down picked, but it’s at such an extreme speed, that it almost seems too mechanic to be humanly possible. The guitar also offers some interesting lines throughout the album, particularly the chromatic lines in void within. The guitar solos also worked well in the songs, you don’t often hear guitar solos in black metal, and I thought they worked well in a way that didn’t take away from the vibe of the track or draw too much attention to the guitar.
The vocals are raw, exactly the kind of thing you want from black metal. An appropriate mid range black metal vocal. In addition to that it also features an occasional almost punk chant vocal. I’m not sure why they chose to put this group vocal in various places throughout the album, but personally I felt like it took away from the album more than it added. Clean vocals make a surprising appearance in the first half of the last song on the album “No Less Than Death”. This epic seems to summarize the album with its melancholic mood that gets more intense as the track goes on, and is ultimately a great closer.
The rhythm section was solid and exactly the kind of thing you want from black metal, punishment, with blast beats, tremolo picking, and occasional grooves. Never standing in the foreground of the album the instruments are a steady pounding like gallows being built, or rain coming down.
Artwork: I really like the artwork, it’s unsettling, heavy dark and depressing, just like the music.
Overall A void within existence is an ambient black metal album that feels heavy in both the distorted guitar metal sense but also in an emotional weight, just like the album cover it’s the man’s own weight that killed him by the noose. I’ve been following Abigail Williams for a few years now and I think this is their best album yet.
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