Review by Jeger on October 21, 2024.

Norway - home to the heavyweights of the black metal genre: Gorgoroth, Emperor, Immortal, 1349, and Satyricon to name a handful, but from out of Oslo emerges a new kind of brutality in the form of Abhorration; savage death metal with a blackened edge to see the demise of everything you thought you knew about the scene. And it’s through unrelenting aggression and unparalleled intensity that this ghastly quartet is making their sonic crimes heard. As all hope for a better future for humanity fades and as the daemons of the pit writhe in the ecstasy of our demise, it’s artists like this gaggle of brutes who are tracking sound to this inevitable end of days. Invoke them! Wrestle with their unholy power and forge ungodly steel over flames of diabolism in the name of all that is infernal, all that is daemonic. On November 1, 2024 Abhorration will release their debut LP, Demonolatry via underground sages, Invictus. 

Heritage? Storytelling? Not today, friends. Prepare for your soul to be torn asunder to the sound of perpetuating chaos like you’ve never heard before as 'Chamber Of Agilarept' and 'Spawn Of The Abhorrent Entity' unfold. Chopping, inertia-inducing progressions along with ripping leads set to compounding rhythms to see you off into the fiery chasms of the underworld. Abrupt, ever-shifting time changes, difficult to piece together, and brandishing sonic weaponry comparable only to outfits like Chile’s Mayhemic or USA’s Ancient Malignity: death-laden grinds, maniacal rhythmic onslaughts, and scaling riffs. Music to murder god’s sheep to - tearing through their tender flesh - incisors dripping with holy crimson. Other equally violent tracks like 'Invoke Them' and the titular track homage Morbid Angel’s “Altars Of Madness” days. Azagthoth would be proud of our boys here. Abhorration operate with sadistic intent throughout the majority of the recording except for the mid-tempo’d 'The Grace Of Immolation' where death doom juggernauts, Asphyx, and Incantation are heralded throughout each torque-driven passage. 

Scrambling the senses and brutalizing any sense of innocence you may have possessed. You’ll go to Hell for listening to this one… Traces of technicality here and there, but above all that mumbo-jumbo stands paramount a familiar sense of blood-boiling blasphemy to immolate the heavens and to tear the wings off of angels. Wretched and cursed, tyrannical and relentless the whole way through. 

There’s been a recent Norwegian rise in death metal notoriety as of late. An extreme metal scene dedicated primarily to black metal, now a Mecca for raw death metal that homages the Satanic titans of the international scene: the above-mentioned Morbid Angel, Deicide, and Possessed. After all, it wouldn’t be Norwegian if not for a bit of Hell-raising, and considering the fact that true death metal’s origins are rooted in the diabolical, it’s only fitting. Abhorration - bastard sons of The Devil and functioning wholly on His red hot energy. Bang your head or ignite the flames of ritual - the choice is yours! The only choice you will not have is the relinquish your soul over to Him. With Demonolatry, Abhorration rape righteousness, and shit on all that is divine. True… fucking… death metal from start to finish.

Rating: 8 out of 10