Five Magics Music: Black Absinthe "Early Signs of Denial" Review

Here comes an album that I have no idea how to categorise, Black Absinthe and their third album “Early Signs of Denial”. This is an album that incorporates all the old Heavy Metal sounds, some thrash techniques and a bit of Death/Black Metal influences. Let’s go for a ride and see what all this album has to offer, shall we?

Early on, you’ll find the song “Now”, which features a blend of sounds from The Offspring and Mastodon. The general sound of the song is upbeat, quick pace and has some real punk resemblance, especially in the chorus, but the part that really catches me is the Mastodon sort of screams and rasp added in to make the vocals sound even more aggressive and contrast with the sort of more Rock sounding chorus. After the second chorus and a brief slow down the song kicks it up and really floors it, much quicker Metal pacing and an awesome guitar solo will bless your ears very quickly before heading back into the chorus and yet another Mastodon scream to end it out.

When “Now” ends it brings the sounds of a chilling wind with it, which will bring us right into the tapping into of “Winter”. Man, this song works, after the tapping intro, the song slows right down for the verse. Once the song kicks back into gear, the instrumentals get very melodic and heavy, but it’s post chorus that catches me. You get a small glimpse of it early on, but once the instrumentals start that have a marching feel it really gets good, straight Black Metal vocals and a quick great solo. Think of Metallica, but James Hetfield gets inspired by Immortal for a song, that’s kind of what “Winter” is. The song ends out with the tapping guitars again and it leaves a chill right in your bones.

It’s hard to say exactly what Black Absinthe play, but who cares. “Early Signs of Denial” is an album that pretty much anyone can enjoy, it’s quick, it’s easy to listen to and its awesome. Regardless of whether you like the more Extreme Metal style of vocals or not, there are so many different influences in this one album that you should be able to find something you like. Is in innovating and groundbreaking? No, probably not. Is it awesome, worth a listen and worth checking out? Fuck yes! The band will be playing a CD release show on May 14th at the Coalition in Toronto and if you’re in the area, you’ll want to be there!