Review by Lawrence Stillman on October 9, 2024.

After the phenomenal debut that is Illuminate The Path, An Abstract Illusion returns with another banger six years later. This album from them marks another masterpiece, blending atmospheric black metal with the speed, production, and songwriting conventions of progressive death metal. While it borrows many of the tropes that atmospheric/progressive extreme metal bands used, they manage to put their own spin on those same tropes, creating something very unique and special.

The album seems to walk the same path that Ne Obliviscaris and Edge Of Sanity treaded, from the blend of non-stop intensity brought on by their instruments to the fact that this album is 7 songs tied together as an hour-long epic (just not lyrically). Despite that, no songs here sound identical, nor do they repeat the same structures, which is a criticism I had with Crimson 1. The songs here are full of blast beats with some calmer, subdued sections in between to give the listener a breather before drowning them in another round of blast beats and guitars. But these blast beats do not sound aggressive or threatening; instead, they sound cathartic and hypnotizing, which is something rarely done right by atmospheric metal bands. It gave the album a much more solemn and melancholic feel, which is sorely needed in the genre.

One thing I like about the album is the use of keyboards. In this album, they serve as a more hidden presence that feeds the listener with atmospheric passages, but occasionally they also give us some lead melodies when the guitars are not in play. While not to the extent of keyboard magic like Regnum Caelorum Et Gehenna, it is still quite enjoyable since the main show is focused on guitars, bass, vocals, and drums. Speaking of drums, the blast beats here dominated most of the album's run time, which is an increase from the previous album, where they sounded closer to old Opeth. While this type of instrumentation can be found on Ne Obliviscaris, it does remove most of the problems I have with Ne Obliviscaris' approach to their musicianship when combined with blast beats, and most of their music just does not mesh well with blast beats. But here they absolutely do blend well, and what a combo that is. The guitars here are drowned in post-rock and shoegaze effects, which gives it a layer of atmosphere that so many atmospheric metal bands lacked while not sacrificing the guitar melodies that are driving the song forward. The bass here is quite buried when the guitars are in play and thus drowned out by the wall of sound and effects, but once one of the guitars is removed, it manifests itself to be an excellent tone-setting piece with its grinding bass creating a droning sound for the keyboards, drums, and vocals to ride on.

While it was not my AOTY 2022, it was very close to taking that spot. It lacked Mogari's varying insanity and the myriad of emotions it can evoke through its songs and storytelling, which made it stand head and shoulders above most extreme metal records. But when taken as a culmination of what Edge Of Sanity and Ne Obliviscaris do best, it definitely did an excellent job at creating a new benchmark for atmospheric and progressive death metal, redefining what the genre can do, just as Iapetus did for progressive/melodic death metal in 2019. Kardashev's "Liminal Rite" does not even hold a candle to this album.

Highlights: 'Tear Down This Holy Mountain', 'In The Heavens Above, You Will Become A Monster', 'This Torment Has No End, Only New Beginnings'

Rating: 10 out of 10