Australia’s Abramelin reformed in 2016 after lying dormant since 2002.  Century Media Records released the phenomenal 3cd collector’s edition Transgressing the Afterlife: The Complete Recordings 1988-2002.  The complete material of the band, even since their Acheron days. Abramelin released several killer and brutal death metal albums back in the mid 90’s and in 2000.  I really have enjoyed their prior material and never thought their reunion would culminate into an actual new album, but low and behold here comes Never Enough Snuff.

10 songs in 50 minutes, so kind of a long death metal album.  They even included a new recording of “Pleasures” which was on their 2000 sophomore album Deadspeak, so that is certainly super cool.  With all the bands out there nowadays I am surprised the band was not picked up by let’s say a Century Media Records.  Maybe the band wanted to own the rights to their new music, as they have released this album themselves.

The title track opens right up with some massive double bass and mid-paced heaviness before the killer blast beat comes in.  Pretty much the original members are intact with David Haley, joining on drums in 2016, everyone else are from the original 90’s/’00.  So the band knows each other’s strengths and if you were a prior fan of Abramelin you will enjoy this return to form brutality.  Abramelin always had an Americanized brutal death metal sound.  Ranging from Suffocation to some Floridian death metal like Deicide/Brutality/Monstrosity.  The band increases their technical proficiency and the title track has some nice melodic guitar soloing, mixing right into the brutal and punishing moments on this album.  Some real tight blast beats towards the end with a nice ending growl.

“Moon Dogs” makes for quite an interesting song title as the riffing comes right in with a killer mid-paced part before erupting into a brutal blast beat and some nice drum rolls to make your head fall clean off your shoulders.  The song breaks into a nice groove moment early on.  The guitar solo comes right in during this part too and some nice vocal variety going on to mix things up.  There is also some vintage 90’s moment fast death thrashing going on and the guitar riffing is really fast.

“Play With Your Prey” starts slow and has a nice monster build-up to the growl and the song really lets those wonderful guitar riffs breathe.  Some nifty drumming going on as the pace picks up and then right into the slower parts and the song alternates between the faster speeds and then pulling back to the cool mid-paced parts which would have circle pits running into each other all damn day if it was not for the stupid pandemic.  Some more classic metal guitar soloing going on and then right into a blast beat and nice varied vocal ranges.  Although I prefer the lower register more to the high raspy parts, it’s still quite a nice mix.

Abramelin’s Never Enough Snuff is a damn good return album.  The vocals are a bit high in the mix and they could have been scaled back just a smidge.  The songs all average at 5 minutes, which makes for a very long listen for brutal death metal.  I feel brutal death metal, from my humble experience as a musician, is best kept to no more than 40 minutes.  That is just my personal preference.  But Abramelin are forgiven, because they have been away for far too long, because I previously stated I really love their prior recorded material.  The musicianship and production is all excellent and the band do vary the tempos quite a lot.  Please like their FB page, check ‘em out on Bandcamp and get their releases.  Welcome back Abramelin – Never Enough Snuff is a lot of fun to listen to.

[Visit the band's website]

---

Comments