Abysmal
The Pillorian Age

Among the names that have shaped the history of black-doom, the Norwegian band Abysmal is often, and unjustly, omitted.

With only one album to their name and practically unknown to the wider metal audience (probably due to their absence from "live" events), they still managed to create something truly unusual for two such canonical and monolithic genres as early '90s black metal and doom.

The specters of Mayhem and Emperor are distant, yet some evil and sulfurous elements, unmistakably "black", are present and clearly audible. Equally remarkable are the gloomy panzer-doom movements.

Imagine, if you can, a blend between early Katatonia, the much-mourned Bethlem, and Darkthrone’s "Transilvanian Hunger" era. These comparisons don’t always convey an exact idea of what you are about to listen to. In doubt, however, you might start to understand something about this album.

The difficulty, in fact, lies in deciding whether this album is part of the black wave or the doom wave. But, ultimately, asking too many questions is pointless. Music, as I always say, is the driving force! Certainly not labels that we usually use for mere convenience.

"The Pillorian Age" was released in 1995 by the Italian AvantGarde Music. Back then, the internet was non-existent, and the only available information appeared sporadically in magazines like Grindzone.

But, as I’ve already told you, people preferred to disregard Abysmal, casting them into oblivion after this majestic debut.

I do not know the band members, nor do I know what their intentions were. I don't know if Abysmal was a group of anti-Christian and blasphemous blacksters or, rather, a trio of tearful doomsters raised with little light in the cold northern lands.

I can only tell you that "The Pillorian Age" miraculously belongs to that limited group of metal albums truly capable of leading us by the hand to the lord of the underworld.

Claustrophobic, slow, oppressive but also dynamic when necessary, and feral like a beast. An album that will hardly find equals in the crowded scene of pandas, black-clothed, misanthropes, and Satanists of various backgrounds.

The songs are seven and are considered "hymns" ("Hymn," indeed). Alongside this description, there are titles such as "Velvet Pilloria", "Four Ravens Flew" and "The Sleeping Antarct", which, incidentally, are the most beautiful and majestic songs.

Painful, slow, sharp, raw, dark, gloomy, and black as pitch!

If I were you, I wouldn't let it pass!