Enter the Abyssal Rift and behold the death-doom monoliths within on Relics of Great Ash.
Release date: August 14, 2026 | Transcending Obscurity Records | Bandcamp | Instagram
Despite its penchant for delivering sheer misery, it is genuinely fun seeing the variety of ways that bands can approach death/doom as a subgenre. One can always find the pure filth that first burbled up from the likes of Autopsy and Incantation. Or, if you want something grander, it’s not hard to track down bands with an epic sense like Solothus, or a progressive edge like the most recent Temple of Void. Myself? I really love those bands that lean into the bizarre mysticisms pioneered by Disembowelment, that delve into uneasy atmospheres and a vaguely psychedelic wash at times while still knowing how to be absolutely crushing. Not the most common approach, I’ll warrant, but every so often some new band will do that sound right.
Ohio’s up-and-comers Abyssal Rift are precisely one such project. Having debuted in 2023 with Extirpation Dirge, which I completely missed, the band has teamed up with the ever reliable Transcending Obscurity Records to release their sophomore Relics of Great Ash. And upon hitting play, it doesn’t take long to figure out just what Abyssal Rift is all about. Eschewing conventional structure, Relics of Great Ash is an exercise in pure deathly atmosphere, flourishing on molten floes of tremolo riff, long stretches of hollow sonic negative space, and warped, unconventional chord choices building a disquieting vibe that just won’t quit.
The intro of “Consummate Design”, admittedly, may trick a first time listener into thinking Abyssal Rift is another band that polished up Incantation‘s old grit, charging forth with wild abandon and serpentine tremolo riffs that do, in fairness, kick a good bit of ass. But a couple minutes into the song, the walls and floor of this cavernous death metal assault dissolve into a shimmering yet lightless void of distant haunting synth and relatively clean guitars that would make a band like Esoteric proud. The unease is cut by some bursts of distorted chords and growls, but the back and forth of vast atmosphere and churning tumult becomes the name of the game across the oddly efficient runtime of Relics of Great Ash.
The title track takes the atmospherics even further, proceeding with drudging single chords over furious drumming that occasionally kicks up the speed for a couple measures at a time. The flow of ideas that Abyssal Rift conjures up may leave listeners at a loss for memorable hooks, but the atmospherics they conjure do make an eight minute song like “Relics of Great Ash” seem like it flies by, flowing right into the similarly potent but more concise “The Enlightenment (There Was Never Will)”. “The Death of God” and “Surrealistic Visions” both fire off with considerably more energy, before the latter congeals into a fittingly funerary ending dirge and the latter twists around in eerie dissonance. Possibly the most haunting track would be the closing “Sphere of Perpetuity”, where the death metal chaos feels the most sparse and distant in favor of a pitch-black miasma of queasy darkness that is only occasionally broken.
I’d be remiss to not mention the specter of bands like Portal that also hangs over Abyssal Rift‘s writing. Almost every song has a twisted progression of chords that makes me raise an eyebrow in appreciation, if not a knotted charge of dissonant avant-garde fury. It’s never enough to deem Relics of Great Ash a fully experimental death metal album, but that element balanced against that Disembowlment-esque focus on mood over structure makes the album a rare treat of death/doom that almost feels improvised in approach. More than once, songs will even dissolve into near complete silence just to further throw off listeners, but Abyssal Rift never feels like they’re being obtuse for no reason. Theirs is an oddly naturalistic approach to an extremely alien take on death metal, rendered in some great production, and even if this isn’t going to be anyone’s every day listening, it is damn well rewarding.
I suppose that’s the trick of an album like Relics of Great Ash. Abyssal Rift‘s approach to death metal, while in no way pretentious, is rather artistic and a bit opaque at first listen. They’re not in the business of writing mosh-friendly crowd pleasers, and the album is light on hooks. Rather, their album is one that promises great treasures as you dig in time and again, revealing itself as a wonderfully crafted, darkly majestic document of the very feelings of death. It may be too dark to see what’s lurking in front of you on Relics of Great Ash, but with a couple listens, you’re damn well going to feel it. Beware.
