Abigail Williams
Becoming

Walking in the falling snow doesn't always convey the same sensations. Much depends on how it falls, its angle and intensity, whether it annoys you or not, whether there's wind or it descends lightly like cotton falling from a child's plush toy, too clumsy to play with things without breaking them. And then there's your state of mind, your mood at the moment you set out, whether you're in a hurry or taking it slow, if you walk with a purpose or simply walk to think. A soundtrack that sufficiently matches your thoughts and the weather conditions can finally transform a normal listening session into a true experience, it can give you a shiver up your spine and make you almost see the puzzle pieces fitting together magically, one with the other, effortlessly.

Snow was falling quite heavily when F. decided to go out for a walk, in the scant hour he had left before starting work again. He had an umbrella but didn't take it: he didn't mind getting wet, and he had seen from the window that the snow, though abundant, had almost no consistency, it seemed more like dust fed to the wind, so he was sure that upon his return, he might be a bit chilly, but certainly not soaking wet. Hood up, hands in pockets, headphones in ears, he sank his first steps into the road made crunchy by at least two layers of snowfall. He looked little ahead: the snow, as it fell, formed a kind of seemingly impassable curtain, a fabric born from the intertwining of threads mainly in two different directions (simply put, from top/left to bottom/right and vice versa), with a few "strands" driven even in his direction. The white curtain seemed to grow either thicker or thinner, depending on how the wind decided to carry the icy crystals: the beautiful thing was that no flake touched his forehead or his cheeks, as if an immaterial shield protected him from impact with the flakes, and it was strange, given that he stood right in the midst of the storm, in the height of its crescendo. The snowfall welcomed him but did not bother him, he felt like a spectator of a work being accomplished, and that would have been realized even if he hadn't been there. Even on his pants or coat, it didn’t seem to cling, falling down as if it had no hold.

The music he had chosen to accompany him in his reflections, in this short walk, was only seemingly chaotic and fierce. It made him think of solitary wolves in cold valleys wounded by icy winds, reminded him of magical rites, lit bonfires, strange runes, tribal rhythms, the clangor of weapons, passion, blood, despair, and battles of times gone by. Its wavering and hypnotic rhythms adapted well to the successive waves of snow he passed through step by step, the acoustic parentheses magically overlapped with the sound of his footsteps on the crunchy ground, while the feral scream seemed like the voice of the wind or the scream of the flakes it carried along. F. had already heard albums like this, he perfectly knew the influences that had allowed the group to compose those pieces, and probably with a different listening, perhaps at home, he might have concluded that what he was listening to was only a copy, even if well done, of what he had previously heard. Nevertheless, he realized he was in one of those moments of perfect stasis, where everything made perfect sense, and he had been able to grasp the meaning (or at least the meaning he felt like attributing) of that album, its perfect spatial-temporal placement, and, beyond more or less good qualitative judgments, he knew that that work, in that context and with those characteristics, sounded divine, and probably a similar album would not have conveyed the same sensations. Having concluded this, F. decided his walk had reached the desired objective, and with a calm smile and a feeling of peace, he returned to the office.

The Abigail Williams are a young, somewhat opportunistic USA band, ready to ride the trends of extreme metal. Starting from metalcore territories, with this latest release called "Becoming," they've seen fit to follow in the footsteps of Wolves In The Throne Room, the fiercer Agalloch, and generally all those groups that refer to the recent American black metal school, with its folk blends, its atmospheric parentheses, its cyclic and hypnotic riffs, and its cold and ancestral atmospheres. As far as I’m concerned, they carried out their task almost impeccably, and if they've been stained with imitations bordering on plagiarism (some crescendos born from almost "mystical" quiet seem extracted entirely from a "Celestial Lineage"), I honestly don’t care if the final result sounds so darn good. It’s not necessary to go into the details of the style this band uses to tackle the various pieces: in fact, if you know the aforementioned groups, the musical traits of Our Guys need no further details, so (post) black metal tainted with moments close to gothic or doom (both from the English school).

I also imagine that Abigail Williams will be accused of lacking originality and not possessing particularly varied songwriting or the ability to stand out from the crowd. As far as I'm concerned, I don’t believe these accusations are entirely valid: I recognize the opportunistic nature of these guys, I admit having often felt like I’ve "heard it before," but I think one should look beyond and listen to "Becoming" with a mind free of prejudice. Doing so, it will become clear that the work created by these guys does not limit itself to entirely copying what other more renowned bands have done, it is something more refined that is based on taking but also on reworking and enriching: in simple terms, they invent nothing new but, by drawing from multiple sources and working a lot on blends and nuances, they still manage to give birth to something that, to a keen ear, can indeed refer to multiple sources, but certainly cannot fail to surprise for the quality with which it was created.

Only by adopting a viewpoint like this will it be possible to appreciate the goodness and caliber of the album, literally being ripped from reality by sumptuous tracks like "Ascension Sickness," "Radiance," or "Beyond The Veil," moments that alone are worth the purchase of the album. Hence a group not to be underestimated but to be listened to with attention.