Reviews

This Arizona metal band gets things off to an interesting start on their debut album with the almost doom-laden intro "Banished." But things don't really get any better from there. Vocalist Mike Manheimer almost sounds like the vocalist from Mastodon which doesn't help separate Knights of the Abyss from others just like them. The music is pretty much the same as dozens of other actss out there now, but in the case of Knights of the Abyss, their drummer has a sense of melody that isn't found very often in metal, which is just about the only refreshing and interesting aspect of this release.

The rest of the record isn't that different, from, say, a Mastodon record, from the almost dueling vocals to the speed of the sound as well as the intensity of the drums and the guitar. The band says this record is almost like the layers of hell, as each track progresses, it's supposed to be like a person falling further and further into hell. It's definitely falling alright, but it's more like each song gets darker and crappier at the same time. By the time they're halfway through, they seem like they're trying to meld the sounds of Six Feet Under/Cannibal Corpse with Mastodon, which is a terrible thing to hear.

By the time "Suicide Reign" comes around, the band is just laughable. I mean they're trying so hard to give an audio example of hell but they're just rolling around in their influences.

It almost kind of pains me to say this but these guys are one of the most unoriginal bands I've heard in a long time. Maybe if they thought of a new approach to their style of metal, they would be able to come up with something different and interesting instead of doing what everyone else around them is doing.