Despite not having done any press nor really having released any information about themselves whatsoever, the enigmatic Blood Abscission have already started to make themselves known thanks to a promising debut that delivered searing, melodic black metal with just enough weirdness to set themselves apart from a woefully overcrowded scene. Adding flashes of post-punk and symphonic BM, I already sounded like a band who were willing to take an open-minded approach to a classic sound. Its follow up amplifies everything that made that debut so intriguing – colder, faster, more grandiose – but pushes that early ambition to new heights.
While opting for long-form, sprawling compositions is hardly a new development within the genre, Blood Abscission have a knack for creating works that are both progressive and naturalistic. ‘II-I’ is a surge of ferocious energy, searing tremolo and blastbeats that hit within seconds of hitting play, delivering a hit of malevolent energy that drifts and morphs across twelve minutes. What starts as pure fury expands into a sweeping, grandiose melody before switching gears into a slab of symphonic black’n’roll and chaotic frenzy before coming full circle and closing exactly where they started. In contrast, ‘II-II’ feels more focused, the shifts between full-on assault and reflective, mid-paced arpeggios sharply delineated in pace and tone. While the former is punctuated with frantic screams and bursts of feedback, the slower passages are pure atmosphere, voices coalescing into haunting moans and synths applied liberally, lending it a sense of dreamy disquiet.
It’s a risky approach but they have a flair for both precision and drama, combining these two sometimes opposing forces to create pieces that inspire a sense of pure awe. Part of the success is that vocally and instrumentally, they exhibit considerable range in how they approach their work, knowing how to conjure up an aura of mystery from sparse melody and segue seamlessly into breathless, blunt force riffing. Though vocals are almost uniformly harsh, cuts like ‘II-II’ do offer up some variety, and ‘II-IV’ eschews them entirely, instead opting for samples to accompany a spacey, droning slice of post-rock reminiscent of Cult Of Luna at their most reflective. Taking that eerie ambience and transforming it into a chaotic blast of cosmic rage for the album’s closing track is a canny move but it serves as another example of just how measured and carefully crafted this record is.
These five offerings strike a keen balance between tradition and modernity, emotional weight and raw power, making II one of early 2025’s standout metal releases. It’s not simply that it’s got the riffs, and it’s not even that it sounds so bloody crisp while still managing to be punishingly heavy. It’s that Blood Abscission make something this ambitious sound as natural as breathing (or maybe screaming) and when a band like this show up, it’s worth taking notice.
