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Abhorrent Decimation certainly turned a lot of heads when their debut album, Miasmic Mutation, dropped in 2015. It was a real treat to hear a British death metal band with the nous and the power of the best the genre could offer. Now, after inking a deal with Prosthetic Records, it’s great to see the momentum has continued on an upward trajectory, because The Pardoner is everything you could wish for from a group of this ilk in 2017. As the haunting piano of opener Soothsayer gives way to the first of many thickly textured riffs, it’s obvious that AD are out to turn all their potential into genuine quality. There is brute force here comparable to the most savage of bands, but when they take it down a notch, as on Votive Offerings’ Tool-esque outro, The Pardoner sucks you in even deeper. With strings, synths and progressive ideas all in the mix, Abhorrent Decimation are an extremely impressive proposition.
