Abbath - Outstrider

The degree to which Abbath’s departure from Immortal shook the metal world outside the band’s hardcore fan base perplexed me a little bit, especially when his highly anticipated, and similarly subsequently highly lauded, self-titled solo album rolled around in 2016 to reveal a creative bend not all too far off from his former band’s. I didn’t dislike Abbath per se, but it did feel just a bit less ambitious or at least less actually mind-blowing than its creator had kind of teased it to be. The only clear distinction the album had from Abbath’s work with Immortal was a certain sense of borrowing from or marching in line with black metal’s modern contemporaries, namely Behemoth, whose album the year before had rocketed them to unprecedented heights. Again, I kind of liked it, but I hadn’t returned to it since 2016 until I gave it a refresher a few weeks ago in preparation for this album. It just felt like a kind of forced alchemy between Immortal’s and Behemoth’s styles of black metal that ended up somewhat diluting the power of both rather than enhancing it.

Regardless, the commercial and critical success of his debut album only raised the bar of excitement for its follow-up this year, and as soon as it was announced, the hype train was up and running (to the degree that a Season of Mist black metal album could be). And then when the first single, the traditionally Immortal-ish and ritualistic chant-supported “Harvest Pyre”, was released, I vaguely remember seeing some publication calling it one of the most important metal songs of the past decade, which I thought was way over-exaggerated. I like the track, and (spoiler) I do think it’s probably my favorite on the album, but it’s really just Abbath doing what he knows best from his years with Immortal; I really don’t see what it is about the song or Abbath’s solo ventures in general that has so many people so up in flurries of praise. I suppose on that note, it’s probably a good time the get into the matter at hand: Abbath’s second solo album, Outstrider.

One of the main things I was expecting and really hoping would happen on this album thankfully did, and that was the diminishing of the overtness of the Behemoth influence on here. It still pops up every now and again, for example on the Demigod-esque “Bridge of Spasms”, but its not as distracting of a feature as it was on Abbath. Instead, Outstrider draws keenly from a variety of metallic influences, within and beyond black metal. From the familiar mid-paced dissonance of the title track, to the classic wailing heavy metal soloing on “The Artifex”, and ridiculously Metallica-influenced melodic riffage on the closing track, Outstrider really does relatively live up to the adventurousness out of black metal’s boundaries its title suggests.

The album does feel more polished and thoughtfully written, which may be due to the greater variety of influences present on this album or to Abbath sticking to guns when its most important and doing what’s tried and true for him. Or both. This is exemplary on the well-handled grandeur of the song “Hecate”, which makes it another major highlight for me in the track listing.

I definitely favor the greater compositional consistency, wider stylistic dynamic, and clearer sense of identity that Outstrider bears compared to its predecessor, but it still feels like there’s still a way to go before Abbath can really rival his former band’s legacy with something as far-reaching as this album suggests his ambitions are directed toward. Again, it’s a significant improvement in nearly every department over the self-titled record, but it still feels like Abbath is doing more borrowing than transforming into his own when it comes to the outside influences that make this album. If there is a vision of a kind of dexterous, multi-talented project that can bounce between and blacken all sorts of metallic styles, I think Abbath can possibly take this project there with some serious work. But if he just wants to bring his Immortal stylings to whatever feels relevant at the moment, we’re just going to get a lot of varied-quality projects like this and the previous record. 

Let’s try over there/10