AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ABADDON INCARNATE — “VERITAS”

Jan 262023

Last August Transcending Obscurity Records detonated a new album by the Irish band Abaddon Incarnate, and we sat back and happily watched the shrapnel fly, cutting through everyone who didn’t have the good sense to duck and cover. Our reviewer DGR found the brutality, rage, and vitriol channeled by the band’s formulation of death/grind to be a welcome catharsis. He spilled many words about The Wretched Sermon, including these:

Ten of the thirteen songs on The Wretched Sermon don’t even cross the three-minute mark and many of them are an excuse for drummer Olan Parkinson to just blast things into oblivion while a high-low vocal attack hits with about as much percussiveness as their drummer does. The highlights on that front come early, as both “Veritas” and “Gateways” make for a good one-two boxing combo in the opening minutes of this album after the band race through the initial death metal gurglings of “Rising Of The Lights” – whose opening riff sounds like something straight out of the world of Centinex before Abaddon Incarnate lean hard into “tear heads off’” mode.

We quote that passage because “Veritas” is the song that’s the focus of a video we’re premiering today. It’s a good reminder of what a hell-raising album this is, and a good introduction to people who might not have crossed paths with it last year.

Those of you who have crossed paths with the album are well aware that Abaddon Incarnate don’t waste time — as DGR noted, only three tracks out of 11 top the three-minute mark — and it happens that “Veritas” is the shortest assault of them all.

There’s no intro, just an immediate scourge of percussive weaponry on full auto, viciously churning riffage, and lunatic howls. The brazen savagery in the music is unmistakable, and electrifying. But while the sonic mauling of the song may seem berserk, the band pack a lot of sharply executed twists and turns into this compact assault, including blasts of thunder in the low end, a feverishly pulsating guitar lead, and doses of traumatic jackhammering groove.

The fast-moving video trades on the music’s most hellish aspects, and credits for it go to actor Ojas Marathe, animator Siddharth S. Joshi, and Abaddon Incarnate guitarist Bill Whelan, who directed it.

The Wretched Sermon is still available in different formats via the Transcending Obscurity links below, and it’s still recommended for fans of Napalm Death, Rotten Sound, Misery Index, Wormrot, Phobia, Nasum, and Balance of Terror. We’ll also give one more tip of the hat to Ken Coleman for the great cover art, which is featured on the Abaddon Incarnate apparel that TO is also selling.