Abhordium – Omega Prayer

Formed in 2005 in Salo (Finland), Abhordium is a blackened/death metal quintet. Omega Prayer is their sophomore 9-tracker album, a follow-up to their 2011 debut When Depravity Incarnates.

From the very beginning of their musical journey, Abhordium’ style has been described as chaotic, brutal and dark. Omega Prayer is no different in that sense, since it is also dark, devastating and brutal release. Their style can still best be described as blackened death metal; although with more straight-forward approach. The band adds even darker and sinister melodies, tremolo riffs and atmospherics of black metal, while still retaining the brutality and technicality of traditional death metal.

Lyrical content deals with themes such as death, misanthropy, human conflicts, apocalypse, chaos, damnation, rituals & dark arts and the depths of consciousness.

Equally, production-wise the album is close to perfect. The production is clean and clear without being too over-polished. I esp. enjoyed the vocals of Kari Laaksonen, those are dynamic, switching between death growls and a lacerating shriek. Together with other instruments (drums, guitars and bass) his vocals are prominent in the mix, but it works just fine.

With Omega Prayer, Abhordium has released another pearl, a very strong opus with 9 unforgiving tracks that demonstrate that Abhordium is a force to be reckoned with. Thus, Omega Prayer sees the band moving slightly away from the brutal death metal approach from their debut album towards something much more fully realized and mature.

The album is refreshing and unorthodox and I’ll urge any fan of the genre to get order this record immediately. It is an essential and worthy purchase for anyone into traditional death/black metal and for fans of Belphegor, Vader, Behemoth, Vesania and similar acts.

For further info on this band from the land of the thousand lakes go to: http://abhordium.com/