Author: Primož Novak
Artist: Abiotic
Label: Metal Blade Records
Release: year_month
Length: 35:35
Rating: 4/5
In 2011, Metal Blade signed an up-and-coming extreme outfit from Miami, Abiotic. The promo copy raved about technical death metal like you’ve never heard it before, and so on. The EP »A Universal Plague« teased decently enough, but the truth always comes out on the album. Often the debut is exactly the album that’s the best and defines the band. Sadly, with Abiotic the debut »Symbiosis« was anything but a masterpiece. OK, this was a band with limited potential that had some interesting technical tricks, but in the end it turned out they were chasing clichés, which showed in the overuse of breakdowns. If they’d been the first to do it, they’d probably enjoy a pretty big reputation today.
Roughly three years after Symbiosis, it was time for a follow-up. In the meantime the band swapped out their vocalist and drummer. The announcements were promising, as they are for every album. But hope definitely kicked in when the band revealed that the album would be produced by the sixth member of progressive lunatics Between the Buried and Me, Jamie King, who clearly has great credentials and is hardly a beginner. Abiotic used to come across as a talented band that didn’t know how to put its potential to proper use. Jamie King obviously saw that potential and helped the band make something more of themselves than just stringing breakdowns together.
So Abiotic no longer sound like a generic deathcore band whose only trick is virtuoso soloing. Sure, the deathcore elements are still there, but they don’t stick out as much anymore. This time Abiotic put more emphasis on speed, so we can now line them up alongside various American tech death metal bands. They haven’t reached the kind of originality of, say, Fallujah or Rivers of Nihil, but there’s definitely real progress to hear. The songs aren’t needlessly dragged out, the riffs are dynamic, the drums are suitably fast, the bass lines really stand out in places instead of just propping up the rhythm guitar, the soloing is more than up to par, and the vocals, in line with modern norms, lean on growls and screams. The only problem is that the band arrived at this style simply too late. These days tech death bands are a dime a dozen, so Abiotic won’t reach a bigger audience unless they do something revolutionary.
Abiotic have set out on the right path with Casuistry. In a good 35 minutes, the band proves they’re solid musicians who will try something new rather than just chase trends. Casuistry is a good step forward and bodes well for future albums too.
Lineup
Travis Bartosek – vocals
John Matos – guitar
Matt Mendez – guitar
Brent Phillips – drums
Alex Vazquez – bass
Production
Jamie King
Tracklist
1. Believe The Unseen
2. Reanimated Destruction
3. Cast Into The Depths
4. Violent Scriptures
5. Nightmares Of Your Conception
6. The Absence Of Purity
7. Falling Into Obscurity
8. Molecular Rematerialization
9. Drain. Deface. Abolish.
