Abysmal Darkening
Demo 2004
Self-Financed
Quintessence e-zine

Here we've got the debut demo of a new outfit from the Tilburg-area. First of all the line-up is something I have to talk about because it mainly consists of women. On this demo we find two female guitarists of which Carla is my colleague here at Quintessence. She still is audible on this demo but has left the band in the meantime due to conflicting schedules. The other guitarist is Bauke who occasionally contributes to Quintessence with her outstanding photography. On bass we find Femke who is also active in Bunkur providing that band with synth-effects. The 2 males in Abysmal Darkening, who by the way started out under the name Darkening, are drummer Chris and vocalist Ludas. The latter is active as drummer in the black metal outfit Sauron. This demo contains 3 songs that clock in just under the 20 minutes mark and musically it is quite simple yet effective darkened doom metal. The production isn't really great but it fits the atmos of these recordings quite well, which is dark. The vocals of Ludas however are the main attraction on this demo. Man, this guy sounds very sick. It somewhat reminded me of Bethlehem. His lyrics mainly deal with overpopulation and misanthropy and contain some excerpts of Nietzsche's works. Although there is a lot of room for improvement this demo is a nice introduction to the metal scene.
Pim

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