Abandon | ‘The Dead End’

Abandon have always possessed a quality that far outstripped their meagre profile. Even for a sludge band, the Swedes have remained relatively obscure, with Codebreaker’s pushing of their 2004 slab of utter despair, ‘In Reality We Suffer’, being their sole offering that ever caught any sort of widespread attention. What praise it did garner it doubtlessly deserved, showcasing a suffocating brand of downtuned hate run through with a seam of utter lyrical paranoia that Dystopia would have been proud of.

With the death of their talented vocalist Johann Karlson of an overdose in January, ‘The Dead End’ is a fittingly bleak for this release. Lacking a label, Karlson & Co.’s last recorded work has been seeping through the internet for some months now. Even on the most cursory of listens, it’s clear that the group has managed to instill a real sense of poise and gravity into the album.

While ‘In Reality…’ seethed and boiled over with an unrestrained sense of anger, this seems to have all the cold realisation of facing the music the morning after. There are sections that recall none other than Skepticism, the lull of an organ adding a real touch of funeral grace to the two parts that make up ‘It’s All Gone’.

While Karlson’s growl remains as tortured and spit flecked as ever, the truth is that the album abounds with new springs of melody and dynamics. It’s hard not to see the ghost of ISIS wavering around some of the sections, with the bass noodling away behind walls of swaying guitar. Even down to the intro, there’s an air of redemptive noise detectable behind the spiteful sounding ambience.

The tracks are longer, more considered and generally offer dynamics that take some time to soak up. Special mention has to go out to ‘There is No Escape’, with those crashing guitar chords punctuating an atmosphere that Shape of Despair and their ilk would gladly put their name to.

And all this from a group that were born and bred in the Gothenburg hardcore scene? The changes to the vocals are the icing on the cake, slipping into an passionate, pain filled shout on occasion, before crushing down with that growl once more. The simple, sparse and captivating sounds of the untitled track do so much with so little.

Rumour has it that this seven track monster is only part of what the band intended this effort to be, and there could be more waiting for some enterprising label to pick up on. Let’s hope so, because on the strength of this, a captivating record is languishing in purgatory. Genuinely powerful stuff and a fitting epitaph. 

4 / 5 - Lorcan Archer ::: 08/09/09