Review by Benjamin on February 8, 2022.

There are some bands that seem to progress at an accelerated velocity, where significant leaps are made from one album to another in such a short space of time, that it barely seems credible that they can have had the opportunity to internalise the lessons of the previous recording in time to turn theory into practice for its follow-up. At the risk of over-exaggerating Abigor’s development from their debut Verwüstung / Invoke The Dark Age to it’s follow-up, barely a year later, I would posit that they are one such band. Perhaps the improvements made between that record and Orkblut – The Retaliation are not quite enough to persuade the more critical listener, but even if that were the case, the ground traversed in four short years from the debut to the virtually flawless Supreme Immortal Art is surely the clincher for this particular argument. One imagines that there are two main factors at play here. Firstly, although Verwüstung may have been the band’s first official release, they had already issued a spate of demos prior to its recording, and indeed these demo tracks continue to pop up (some in reworked forms) throughout their early career. This meant that not only had the band gone through the difficult trial and error process of discovering how best to translate their inspirations into musical form, but that they were also sitting on an extensive cache of ideas to mine for their early full-lengths, like extreme metal prospectors with a very precise map. When this is overlaid with the fact that, at least in the rather niche world of underground esoteric music, black metal was both literally and figuratively catching fire, one can imagine that finding oneself in the eye of a cultural tornado might create exactly the kind of crucible needed to forge such art, in the kind of fevered activity that many of the bands of the time were stimulated into. Bands of the time excluding Thorns, of course, who took several (admittedly incarceration-interrupted) years to produce a single incredible album, which has sadly not been supplemented by a follow-up in the two decades since its release.

Although it is, in many ways, a similar album to its predecessor, at the same time, Orkblut takes everything that was good about Verwüstung and supercharges it, while at the same time adding a degree of coherence and fluidity that allows the songs to feel more natural, and less contrived. As good as many of the individual moments were on the previous album, listening to it is a little like walking into a newly constructed house, which has not yet been decorated. The structural integrity is sufficient, the floors, walls and ceilings are all intact, but the joins are visible, and the services are exposed for all to see. The months between the debut and its follow-up have allowed Abigor the time to paint the walls and hide the pipes and wires, and even add a touch or two of luxury. This time, the listener can enjoy the full force of the Abigor barrage, with less awareness and visibility of how it’s been assembled, and this allows for a fuller immersion in their dark and evil world.

Their dark and evil world seems to be something that Abigor have applied a substantial level of diligence to creating on Orkblut, and the album as a whole benefits hugely from this attention to detail. The sub-title of their debut, Invoke The Dark Age, was perhaps coined more in hope than expectation, as if to instruct the listener to experience the album in a specific way, but on Orkblut, this is something that they come much closer to achieving. It is partially achieved through the structure of the album, which deliberately connects each metal track to the next by way of short interludes. It is not uncommon for black metal albums to utilise dark ambient segments to add atmosphere to their music, but that is not what is happening here. Although the interludes are largely synth-based, they develop clear melodic ideas, and utilise tonal choices and harmonic intervals that enhance the medieval feel of the album. This is most literally seen on the excellent ‘Medieval Echoes’, which roots the band right back into the foundations of classic metal in the way in which it recalls ‘Orchid’, from Black Sabbath’s none-more-classic "Master Of Reality". On an album as earth-shatteringly heavy as that record, ‘Orchid’ reflects a timeless quality on to the band’s apocalyptic doom, somehow connecting it to the elemental forces of creation, as if Sabbath are channelling the movement of the tectonic plates, and pushing these world-rending forces through their instruments. ‘Medieval Echoes’ does the same thing, suggesting a lone minstrel telling a sorrowful tale, accompanied by his lute, at least until the short track develops the main figure, adding deft melodies, interweaving a spellbinding web of sound over swelling orchestral keyboards, and once again underscoring Abigor’s level of ambition, an ambition that their capabilities are rapidly rising to meet.

Although the more structured use of the predominantly instrumental interludes does a superb job of setting the mood, and enriching the overall atmosphere, the album of course ultimately lives and dies by the quality of the metal tracks, and in this respect Orkblut is certainly not found wanting. On the whole, the album transcends a slightly under-powered production, due to the quality of the material, which takes the brilliance found in patches on its predecessor, and stretches it out across much longer passages of music. Although the kind of tinny sonics that characterise the album sound in retrospect like the kind of black metal shibboleth that is now a staple of the genre, one suspects that for a band as visionary as Abigor, this was as much a necessity as it was a choice, the equipment available to a niche underground metal band in 1995 not being quite what it is today. The prevailing musical themes see Abigor piling neoclassical riffs and melodies on top of one another almost to breaking point, separated by serrated flurries of more conventional tremolo work. The savage guitars are expertly underpinned, as always, by T.T.’s hyperactive drum performance, which mixes a furious and unabating double-bass battery, with churning tom rolls and quickfire fills. Where Verwüstung only really had one instance of elite, unparalleled magic though – the dramatic riff that lights up ‘Weeping Midwintertears’ – virtually every track on Orkblut features sections that match this for quality. ‘Bloodsoaked Overture’ pulls off the trick twice in two minutes, firstly with an unforgettable mid-tempo riff that cuts its way mercilessly through the synth backdrop, and then again when a climbing melody builds a majestic path heavenwards over a scaffolding of half-time rhythms, which unusually for the band, allows space for the captivating guitar figures to dominate what is usually a dense and claustrophobic mix.

Across the majority of the album, reference points are broadly similar to their debut – the whirlwind symphonic black metal of early Emperor, Satyricon and Limbonic Art, but Abigor’s take on this sound is set apart by the familiar, and slightly haphazard way in which percussion and synth effects jump in and out of the mix, which brings a satisfyingly warped aesthetic to the Abigor sound. This is perfectly aligned with their chaotic aesthetic, and also prevents them for ever getting too close to the more sanitised symphonic sound that was perhaps the inevitable result of the growing popularity of the sub-genre in the late 1990s / early 2000s. The embodiment of this is the utterly bizarre and impenetrable screed of what sounds like backwards-masked guitars that introduces the otherwise monumental ‘Battlefield Orphans’. Perhaps this is Abigor’s own nod to the ‘Satanic panic’ of the 1980s, during which a number of metal acts were accused of inserting secret messages into their music, designed to initiate unsuspecting youths into the occult, although if this were the case, it would be rather superfluous, given that fact that Abigor are not exactly trying very hard to hide their anti-Christian allegiances. With or without this strange initial bombardment though, ‘Battlefield Orphans’ would represent the high point of Orkblut. The initial mid-tempo, slightly dissonant surge is solid enough, recalling early Burzum, particularly with Silenius’s howling screeches placed high in the mix. However, following a transition through a section layered with spectral voices, which add an intriguing texture, an utterly exultant classic metal melody carries the song into a glorious new realm, before the guitars drop out altogether, the same melody carried only by the synths, creating a moment of wonder in which the the beauty of the refrain becomes truly apparent, stripped of the band’s usual bombast, before the drums and crunching guitars join in once more through to the conclusion of a masterful track. The band’s versatility is further demonstrated by the ease with which jackhammer death metal riffs, strangely close to the kind of barrelling rampages that pepper early Amon Amarth albums, are integrated into the otherwise raging black metal of ‘The Rising Of Our Tribe’ and the closing track proper, ‘Severance’, which is an exhilarating blast of pure speed, generally unencumbered by the convoluted complexity and stop-start changes of much of Abigor’s material, showing that they are equally as proficient in dealing in rudimentary orthodoxy as they are confounding with intricacy, when the mood takes them.

This particular version of Orkblut is reinforced by a 1995 recording of an old demo track, ‘Shadowlord’, which did not feature on the original pressing of the album. It’s difficult to see why it did not feature on any of the band’s contemporaneous albums, representing, as it does, the perfect consolidation of everything at which Abigor excel, together with the fascinating addition of a clean baritone vocal, which supplements the band’s black metal attack, as well as giving rise to the amusing image of a corpse-painted Peter Steele adding his significant presence to the Austrians’ ranks. The inclusion of ‘Shadowlord’ only bolsters the calibre of an already extremely good record though, and there are very few serious criticisms to level at something that is both reassuringly a product of its time, and also an enduring example of the appeal of mid-90s black metal. The odd twists and turns of the band’s idiosyncratic approach to composition and arrangement adds mystery and intrigue, but never at the expense of razor-sharp, scything riffs, and raw aggression, and even the interludes augment the flow of the album, rather than destroying it in its tracks. Camus said that retaliation is a product of nature and instinct, it is not a concept that is contemplated by law. Similarly, Abigor’s own Retaliation is a product of their chaos and disorder, and by following their own instincts, and remaining true to their nature, the band produced a second album of domineering might and magnificence.

Rating: 8.8 out of 10

First published here: alifetimeofmusic.wordpress.com

Review by Felix on December 28, 2019.

Early Abigor had a weakness for bilingually titled outputs and sometimes this kind of acceptable duplicity was reflected in their musical approach as well. Orkblut – The Retaliation combines Summoning-compatible interludes with pretty puristic stuff. Of course, the parallels to the masters of Austrian epic black metal are by no means just a matter of chance. Silenius was omnipresent at the mid-nineties. Pazuzu, Die Verbannten Kinder Evas and, of course, Abigor and Summoning were his manifold fields of activity. But Orkblut… is not mainly shaped by the monumental keyboard lines that became the trademark of Summoning after their halfway metallic debut. The EP with the almost hardcore-compatible technical data (eleven songs in less than 25 minutes) outlines the pristine understanding of black metal. There is an extreme misanthropic momentum in the art of Abigor which is also mirrored by the totally anti-commercial sound. The production generates a nebulous aura. Do not expect powerful drums or a clearly defined overall appearance, but a mix that fits the music very well. Moreover, the nagging of the lead vocalist expresses this kind of well-considered hatred that lends the music the final diabolical touch.

The occult atmosphere of Orkblut… is ignited by dark melodies (enjoy the central part of “Bloodsoaked Overture”) that surprisingly combine almost soft tones with a proper background blackness. The timpani at the beginning of the first “complete” song, the programmatically titled “The Rising of Our Tribe”, builds a bridge to “Verwüstung / Invoke the Dark Age” from 1994, but it’s not only this instrument that reminds the listener of the preceding full-length. Orkblut… shows the band on the same evolution level as Verwüstung… without – almost needless to say - any signs of lame stagnation. The Austrian trio handles the different colors of its sound masterfully and so the rather shy parts and the wicked sequences form a really astonishing, monolithic unit. Orkblut… is one of these releases that make one thing very clear. It does not always need extreme vehemence in order to unleash the forces of evil. In terms of black metal, true and authentic spirituality is of higher importance, even though a robust musical basic structure is of very high relevance as well. Combining both leads to songs like “The Soft and Last Sleep”, where a dreamy keyboard break is extremely well embedded into its sinister and vigorous surrounding.

Just like Verwüstung…, the here reviewed EP, full-length or whatever is a trip back in time. A time, when my first love called thrash metal was in a comatose state. A time, when the ambivalent evolution of black metal, the mutation from a fascinating underground phenomenon to a mass movement of partly incompetent fools and hobby-Crowleys, had not yet begun. And honestly speaking, the later evolution of Abigor also did not make me happy. But that’s another story. So, let’s enjoy Orkblut… with its mostly great compositions and its genuine feeling without a tear in the eye.

Rating: 7.9 out of 10