Proclamation - Nether Tombs Of Abaddon

Right next to Revenge, another one of my top war metal acts of today are the Spaniards Proclamation. In fact, it would be safe to say that I enjoy them slightly more than the vile Canadian act, as releases like ''Messiah Of Darkness And Impurity'' are easily my favorite bestial black metal albums. ''Nether Tombs Of Abaddon'', though, feels like a much more standard affair due to its sublime predictability and and its canned brand of chaos, simply engaging the listener brutally and pasting the same sound found on the previous releases on top of a muffled, distorted texture. I'm not going to say it was boring all the time, because it surely wasn't, but variation and liveliness was not at its climax, so if Proclamation plan on staying installed to their throne, they had better think of something much more moving, and diverse.

There are many ambient choirs and short sound tracks dispersed around several tracks as a need to buy some time I suppose. Just like many albums who fail to deliver some spiking, vivacious crust, the first few tracks of this album sound as deadly and as lively as the previous albums, but no fire blazes forever, and the flames of ''Nether Tombs'' are rather futile and within a short period of time, they extinguish. The downright simplicity and half-living outbursts of chaos are nothing new to me, and within a few deathly incursions, they fade away and crumble into dust. Well, almost dust. Even that rich, saturated tone of fullness doesn't tend to affect the ability of the riffs positively, but after the mark of futility has been set, the album pretty much travels in that same sense for its entire duration.I suppose I can grant a few points for the desecrating attacks of chaotic chords and scattered notes, flying, diving and crawling onto each other, but I can't get too avid even when the violent, churning chord strums are pungent with pious evil.

The vocals are not as dissonant as I anticipated, and their well done in a blasphemously raspy matter. The drumming is just as fine, flourished with some additional cymbal abuses and plenty of blast beats, which is by no means something new. I would have enjoyed the music more if the riffs were more cantankerous and challenging, to fit the music better, but at least they're morose and downright evil, so the album still reaches for a level above average, but never too high. On this album, Proclamation were far from their best. If they had concentrated more on the passionate evil and had worked more on the details instead of spurting out simplistic chaos and plain anger, then I would have enjoyed ''Nether Tombs Of Abaddon'' more. Nonetheless, still a solid effort with decent consistency and a crushing array of black metal dozed death metal riffs, even if it's not for everyone.

Highlights:
Psalms Of Mortification
Regurgitated Bibles


Rating: 73%