Much like the recent Candlelight/SOAR releases Diskreet, Rose Funeral and Whitechapel, Arizona’s Knights of the Abyss ply a form of technical, grindy, breakdowny, modern death metal, that’s to say, and I hate to use the term; deathcore, and they actually should give Job For A Cowboy (who share the same producer) a run for their money to be Arizona’s best deathcore band.

And like their dual label mates, this is pretty stout stuff. Not quite as good as Diskreet or Whitechapel but maybe a tad better than Rose Funeral, KOTA aptly named debut has all the genre’s requisites in spades-notably, bowel emptying breakdowns amid the competent blast beats as well as hardcore-ish shouts, deep growls and blackened shrieks. Admittedly, you and I have heard this before, and the band does little to distinguish themself from the pack (even with the orchestral injection for the opening title track), but the Candlelight/SOAR licensing deal is admittedly, on to some of the better bands in the much maligned genre.

Still though as far as sheer, speaker rattling heft, tracks like “Karmageddon”, “Gridlock” “I Pledge Agrieveance”, “Megabrain” will satiate fans of crumbling modern death core and other middle tier bands in the genre like The Classic Struggle, Antagony and The Taste of Blood. As long as they are willing to sit through some rudimentary blasting filler as Through The Eyes of The Dead, All Shall Perish or Misericordiam this is not, and deal with the whole image and looks thing that seems tokeep metal fans divided when it comes to this sort of band.

[Visit the band's website]

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