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"I have listened to many a doom metal band throughout my twenty something years of underground trudging, but nothing has prepared me for the Italian trio Abysmal Grief. I have listened... and I have been blown away! Abysmal Grief is the epitome of gothic-oriented doom metal. Wait a second before you skip to the next review, you impatient purist! This is mainly due to the fact that 'gothic' metal as we know it has never been really 'gothic', i.e., genuinely dark in that respect. When I think of the gothic adjective, I summon vistas of alchemical magick, druids in black robes and blood rituals. I think of vast cathedrals and depravity. I think of the dark ages, filthy, prejudiced, primitive Europe; I think of disease, I think of the plague, of the pestilence; I think of feces thrown out of the windows for lack of sanitation; I think of black rats and decomposing cadavers on the streets of the great European capitals."
"Abysmal Grief's depraved sounds have epitomized those hostile human conditions in all their glory, horror and ugliness. If there ever was anything that would be rendered as gothic doom metal, this is exactly how I want, how I need, my cup of bitter, mind-altering brew. Think of a perfect amalgamation between Moonspell's Irreligious (mainly due to the baritone, monk-like chants and the crude eroticism); Cultus Sanguine's The Sum of All Fears (choking thick ambiance); Tristitia's One With Darkness or Crucidiction (again, the dark baritone chants, the sacrilegious musical stance); Reverend Bizarre's aesthetics and theatrics (non-inverted crosses and the dark religious innuendos)."
"Gloomy, funeral-procession-like ambiance, with the heavy use of organs and what sounds like harpsichord, Abysmal Grief musically communicate with the dead; they are the great necromancers of music. The band have voiced their unique fascination with communicating with the metaphysical life beyond life, and this auditory translation of that very fascination into music surely sounds like that. The recording is horror-filled, almost genuinely scary, daunting and haunting. The listening period turns into a macabre ritual one is an unwilling participant in; a religious deed of sorts in the gargantuan gothic church of the departed. If you have ever wondered what might be a perfect metal album that will showcase spirituality, mystery, atmosphere; and will embody the depravity of black metal, the somberness of doom metal and the craving of the human soul for the unknown and the beyond, Abysmal Grief is probably your answer. This is what gothic metal should be."
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