Australia’s Abramelin comeback album in 2020, Never Enough Snuff,  was a really good death metal album, which I reviewed as well.  Refusing to rest on their laurels, this band was a free agent, and picked up by Hammerheart Records, and Sins of the Father is the band’s latest offering.

An issue I had with the last album was it felt like a long album with an average run time of five minutes per song.  The band has seemingly streamlined things a bit without reducing the quality in their writing abilities.  The average song length this time around is four minutes and “Conflagration of the Dreamers” opens up this quality death metal album.  No need for a fancy intro as the music erupts with a killer old-school 90’s era growl from longtime vocalist Simon Dower.  He sounds punishing on this.  His enunciation is also spot-on.  The song gets into a meaty mid-paced crunch before the blasting erupts yet again as David Hailey blasts away possessed by some underground vermin.  This opening song sliding into the blasts and then moving into those slower-paced moments are excellent.  Very good guitar solo towards the end of the song too.  Great tempo shifts galore on this sucker.

The band has always mixed a little bit of sarcastic humor into their horror-laden death metal.  Such is the case with the next song “The Gory Hole”.  Yes, you read that right, get your mind outta the gutter, nothing glorious about a Gory Hole!!  The opening has scorching guitar riffs from Rob Mollica and newbie Joe Haley, who is the brother of their drummer.  Excellent blasting and ferocious double bass drums.  There is some dual layering of vocals on this song, which at times, comes across as similar to Deicide.  Check out the blasting at the 2.10 mark and then right into that thumping mid-paced gallop then back into the blast with vocals over this section is death metal bliss.

One thing veterans of the scene usually do not forget and that is song structure and writing memorable songs.  Now I would not call Abramelin’s music overly catchy, however, there are enough parts and moments swirling around here that you can remember.

“Last Rite” is prominently placed in the middle of the album allowing the listener to catch their breath.  Starting off slower with atmospherics the song is a slow mid-paced grinder.  The guitar and drum tone on this section truly shines and you can make out those guitar notes clearly.  The band not wanting you to get too comfy goes into a brutal blast beat with some smashing cymbals to accentuate the hate involved with the sound of this song.  Guitar riffing at the 2.18 is very memorable as is the section at the three-minute mark with some harmonies and a scorching guitar solo afterwards.  The punishing mid-paced heaving heaviness highlights the rhythm section quite nicely.  The blasting returns ferociously, to collapse some chest cavities out there.

Sins of the Father is a damn fine slab of death metal vomited up from Abramelin.  I feel this is stronger than their comeback album.  If you really dig 90’s era brutal, yet quality death metal, you must give the band a chance and please check out their prior releases  – all the way back to the 90’s!!

[Visit the band's website]

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