Band:	Abstract Spirit
Album:	Theomorphic Defectiveness
Style:	Funeral doom metal
Release date:	April 22, 2013
A review by:	R'Vannith

01. Theomorphic Defectiveness
02. Za Sonmom Cvetnyx Snovidenii
03. Leaden Dysthymia
04. Prism Of Muteness
05. Under Narcoleptic Delusions
06. March October [Skepticism cover]

Take your time with this album and you might find Russia's Abstract Spirit couldn't have chosen a more fitting name. It's the additives and what escapes between each trawling note which initially entice and encourage further listens through the long reach and macabre tread of this piece of funeral doom.

Abstract Spirit aren't exactly making a bold new statement for the genre but what makes their sound particularly distinctive is the strange effects that are ably swirled around within the mix. But a bold statement is something which can be a difficult thing to make when it comes to this slow style of riff accumulation. Once the listener has listened, the lethargic pace of guitars either produces something substantial and retentive in the long run or they don't. Fortunately for this band they do.

Where used the melodies sound sick. Not the "woah, awesome man" kind of sick but the "you look like you need to lie down" kind of sick. They sound unnatural and fetid as they rise and swell in the "Prism Of Muteness" or "Leaden Dysthymia." Even a few surprising momentary shreds spice up the likes of "Prism Of Muteness" with its strangely solemn vocal choir placed in a swirling atmosphere.

The rather ghoulish feminine vocal presence in the title track lumbers in an occult incantation, at first something secondary before moving hauntingly closer to the fore.

Ground down beneath the oppressive growls of the Russian titled "За Сонмом Цветных Сновидений " you'll find the best representation of the band's unusual inclinations; a shimmering effect is often layered beneath the guitars to raise them up and the use of what sounds like a trombone, which is also used elsewhere, gives it a truly irregular bend.

Most punishing is the album's consistent tempo; it's unrelenting and fixed. Each of the tracks are mostly constructed in a similar drumming pattern and make up a burgeoning body of distorted guitar work. Tracks like "Leaden Dysthymia", with a more concise insistency, add slight variance with a militaristic beat as it draws nearer the end; a marching of the bizarre spirits moving irregularly to the trombone in a predetermined direction.

Theomorphic Defectiveness is like a horror film stuck in slow motion, each riff being the kicking open of a coffin and letting loose all manner of hellish souls.