I
Between Two Worlds
Nuclear Blast 2006
And finally we have some new musical output from Abbath. And man is it a
pretty damn good slab of metal. It is nice to see Immortal's Original
drummer Armagedda back in the music scene and also to see Demonaz doing lyrical
contributions again. Everyone has been talking about these guys lately and
all the different things they hear and so on. I agree with most of it but
I don't really hear the Motorhead influence except maybe in the first song, The
Storm I Ride which incidentally is the promo single that everyone has been
hearing. The main influences I can detect are Manowar and later day
Bathory due to the massively epic nature of most of the material on Between Two
Worlds. Also parallels/similarities can be drawn to certain aspects of At
the Heart of Winter and Sons of Northern Darkness era Immortal. The
biggest recognition of that style will come to the forefront when Battalions
quickly strums out of the speakers. It's uptempo crunch just reeks of
Immortal and their influence cannot be denied. My favorite songs are
Warriors and Mountains with their bombastic and crystalline majesty triumphantly
echoing through my head. Oddly enough though to me the most boring song is
the title track. You don't usually find that with an album. The
riffs are so catchy and bouncy with a sense of grandeur and history. I
almost feel like I am hearing tales of olden days spun to the music of a modern
era. These songs bridge the gap somehow between the old and the new.
Even surprisingly several classy and wonderfully crafted guitar solos manage to
infuse rock and roll roots into the pages of Between Two Worlds with the best
example coming on Mountains. Abbath's vocals are not as harsh as with
immortal but as the album progresses along they become more and more grim.
The production is crystal clear and obviously a lot of time and money was
invested in this album. If you are still feeling the absence of Immortal
then I will certainly fill that void as Immortal's catchier and way more epic
brother.