Band:	Abscess
Album:	Horrorhammer
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	2007
A review by:	Jeff

01. Drink The Filth
02. New Diseases
03. Poison Messiah
04. Another Private Hell
05. Eterminate
06. When Witches Burn
07. Four Grey Walls
08. Beneath A Blood Red Sun
09. Horrorhammer
10. Hellhole
11. March Of The Plague
12. The Eternal Pyre

Maybe that you don't know Abscess yet, but when I will give you the names of the previous bands of its members, you'll probably understand that we're not in front of newcomers. Actually, Abscess is the mix of the musicians of two famous US underground bands, Von and Autopsy. "Horrorhammer", their new album, is released this year on the sub-label (and Darkthrone's one) of Peaceville, Tyrant Syndicate.

The music of Abscess is extremely basic. We're in front of a classic old school Death Metal, which uses raw vocals, heavy riffs and frenetic tempos. Of course you can add some crazy "unstructured" guitars soli (in the pure old school Death spirit) and you will understand how it sounds. Some songs are cool and even catchy but it's also extremely basic and a bit weak on a side, which means that it can become boring after some listening. It's hard to explain but even if we have good stuff on this album, I never found it super convincing too. If you really like old school Death it can be ok, but if you prefer to listen to something a bit more complex, it could become problematic. Though, I have to add however that the "rock" spirit than we can find on some songs is really cool and catchy.

If you like "true" sound and archaic recording you can be sure that you'll be happy here. Not that the production is horrible nono we can hear the instruments and the singer, but the band chose to record the album with this "old spirit" recording and on a side, it's cool. After all, when you know who are the members of Abscess, I don't even imagine something else. It fits to the music really.

At the end I only find this album a bit boring. It's ok to listen to it but even if it's not bad, there is nothing special in this release too. It's a bit sad because after all the line up is composed of members of two really good and classic combos but it seems that they didn't have the best inspiration when they wrote the songs of this album. True fans of Death Metal and Autopsy will have to check it, have a look on it and you'll see?