Abigail Williams
Legend
Candlelight
2007
Phoenix, Arizona's Abigail Williams is
an amalgam of all that is currently popular in the extreme metal scene; Screechy
black metal vocals, Bombastic keyboard flourishes, ethereal clean vocal
passages, and so on. It's main backbone though it formed by a heavy dose
of Jester Race era In Flames and the metallic Gothenburg-isms that have
dominated the scene for the recent past. each song splices together these
ingredients to varying degrees and comes up with a potent yet sometimes hollow
concoction that will satisfy those who enjoy the shallow end of the extreme
metal ocean without ever plumbing its abyssic depths. I ever am not one of
those people. Luckily Abigail Williams keeps it short as Legend clocks in
at just over 20 minutes long. The album is not devoid of interesting ideas
and riffs though. I like the guitar solo and riffing at around the 1:50
mark of The Conqueror Wyrm. Plus the way it breaks into a keyboard laden
and clean vocalled segment is quite inventive. also sometimes the
songwriting gets a little too muddle and confusing such as around the 3 minute
mark of Watchtower. People should remember that sometimes less is more.
The production on here is clean and crisp and there is a lot of punch to the
recording which suits a band like this just fine. The drums are a little
too triggered for me though. Some how they just seem a little plastic and
not organic enough. Everyone in the band is talented at their instruments
and I think that the guitarist is actually top notch as I love some of the
squeals and tweaks that he incorporates as little bonus' at the end of some of
his riff passages. But still somehow for me this EP manages to fall flat
and I think to myself that though they have had 325,000 hits on their myspace
page that yes, over a quarter of a million metallers can be wrong. In
other words, quantity does not necessarily equal quality. heh heh.
Just because you take all these different yet equally popular styles and blend
them together doesn't mean that it is going to be a success. I guess in
the end for me it just seems like Abigail Williams sounds too "cookie cutter"
and trendy for me to take seriously.