Abysmal Dawn are a death metal band from the US and this is their latest EP.
Abysmal Dawn are always worth checking out, in my humble opinion. Their brand of modern death metal is heavyweight and satisfying, and their latest EP offers 19 minutes of meaty aggression to satisfy fans of the style.
The first track – A Nightmare Strain – is a new one, left over from the sessions of the band’s last album Phylogenesis. It veers a little more into their occasional melodic and progressive tendencies, making for an engaging and enjoyable cut that’s lean and focused, despite its progressive elements.
Blacken the Sky is a rerecorded version of a song from the band’s 2004 demo. I haven’t heard the original, but this is a heavy, brutal track that hits hard and gets results. Very nice.
It wouldn’t feel like a proper Abysmal Dawn release without a cover song, and Nightmare Frontier has two of them. The first one is Behind Space by In Flames, and it’s a pretty decent version of it. Faithful to the original, it’s simply a good cover. The EP ends with a version of Candlemass‘ Bewitched, which is also faithful to the original, unexpectedly so as it mainly features clean singing rather than the usual deep growls that the band use.
Nightmare Frontiers is a solid EP from Abysmal Dawn. Check it out for a short hit of enjoyable metal.