Abigail Williams preview

Abigail Williams
Doug’s Rockhouse, Aurora
Thursday, October 23, 2008

Think American Black Metal (or black metal in general, really) and a few things come to mind: one-man bands, graveyard promo photos, unreadable logos, ridiculous corpsepaint, kvlt dudes on their parents’ computer talking shit about Nachtmystium, and horrible-sounding record production.

In many cases, there’s nothing wrong with any of this (except the Nachtmystium-bashing; Assassins is better than anything . . . ever) because these attributes define the genre. Bands like Deathspell Omega, Gorgroth, and Marduk have taken this stuff real serious for a real long time, and that deserves real respect. The 18-year-old whose girlfriend takes Myspace pictures of him swinging a flail and think that’s black metal? This is why so many people view the genre as a mockery, especially in the States where every schmuck with a bullet belt and a four-track recorder thinks he’s Malefic from Xasthur or Wrest from Leviathan.

That’s why Arizona’s Abigail Williams and its debut full-length, In The Shadow Of A Thousand Suns (Candlelight; October 28th), is refreshing: the band (Emperor drummer Torson played drums on most the record) wanted its record – prepare yourself – to have awesome sound production. To accomplish such a feat, Abigail Williams took its 10 songs to extreme metal studio guru James Murphy (former member of Testament, Death, and Obituary), who provided Thousand Suns the putridness of Darkthrone and the sonic clarity of Strapping Young Lad. That’s not to say everything is hunky-dory: frontman Sorceron (no corpsepaint or spiked leather costumes, but the members do dig the BM pseudonyms) isn’t the most expressive vocalist, and the group sometimes get too cute with the orchestral elements (we swear pianist Ashley Ellyllon rips off a Dennis DeYoung lick in “Acolytes”), but it’s still an intriguing new direction for U.S. B.M.

Abigail Williams, Veil Of Maya, and Desecrate The Hour open for The Faceless. This show was originally supposed to take place at Mojoes in Tinley Park but was moved to Doug’s.

— Trevor Fisher

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly