AbsentiA – Our Bleeding Sun (2011)

As a late contender for ‘self-produced’ album of the year 2011, today we have AbsentiA and their monumental “Our Bleeding Sun”. With a sound that easily rivals Dimmu Borgir and other similar bands, this little ‘unknown’ band from Spain makes a huge ruckus with the nine superb tracks featured in this release. Being fans of Melodic (insert_whatever) Metal ourselves, AbsentiA does an excellent job in incorporation melody, aggression and heaps of surprises into their sound.

After opening with the Dimmu Borgir-esque intro “All this Hell”, the band quickly delivers the first high-intensity track with “The end of the Line”. Featuring a healthy mixture of powerful riffs with perfectly timed keyboards and crushing vocals, the band has a very powerful and yet melodic sound, something that is unusual for unsigned bands. With “Inferno” giving a Dissection vibe, the band delivers another powerful track that is nicely adorned by a very effective melodic passage with a nicely crafted solo and enchanting female vocals.

“Dead Winter” is one of the most entertaining songs on the album since it features a wide variety of tempo changes and some hellish vocals courtesy of Julian Diaz, the bands vocalist/guitar player. Again, the melodic section featuring a cello is just phenomenal, a great formula that works very well for this band. Our favorite track of this album has to be the melodic assault “Portrait of a Soul”, with its powerful keyboards and catchy riffing. The drumming in this release is pretty solid, but the ‘swishing’ effect kind of annoyed us after a while, but this is just a personal taste issue.

Reminding us of Shade Empire (when they didn’t suck), we have “Is Heaving Crying”, another hard-hitting track with excellent melodic elements. The crushing “If Only I” is another fine example of how the band can use the same formula but add extra elements to keep things fresh and engaging. Closing with the instrumental “Once More Step – Away from Home”, the band nicely rounds up a very emotional and powerful release. There are no weak moments in this album and this is truly an achievement these days.

If you are looking for well crafted melodic Metal, look no further and order AbsentiA’s “Our Bleeding Sun” album. All instruments are very well executed and perfectly arranged in the songs, the production is also amazing and can rival any ‘big budget’ release from any label these days. We are nicely surprised by the quality of this release and we hope to keep hearing from this band in the future.

Release: October 2011

Country: Spain