Lahmia – Into the Abyss (2012)

Seemingly out of nowhere, today we have one of the best Melodic Death Metal releases we have heard in the past few years with Lahmia’s “Into the Abyss”. For a debut full-length release, this riff-tastic album is very well crafted with excellent melodic passages and very aggressive sections. With the typical comparisons to Swedish Melodic Death Metal giants Dark Tranquility, the band also fuses some of Belgium’s Thurisaz elements into to their music to create a superb album.

Opening with “Drag Me to Hell”, the band delivers intense Thrash riffing that nicely morphs into more traditional Melodic DM as the song progresses. The Dark Tranquility worship is clearly evident with the section around the 4:30 mark where they sound like DT’s opus “There In”. The mixture of traditional growls with some harsher Black Metal shrieks nicely reminds us of Thurisaz, but with less emphasis on the atmospheric side of things, as depicted on “Nightfall”.

The first truly awesome song comes with the name of “Silent through the Screaming Crowd” and its brutally melodic sections. The band’s guitarists Flavio Gianello on lead guitar and Samuele Piacenti on rhythm guitar, make an excellent duo when it comes to crafting catchy and complex riffing structures. The band pummels through excellent melodic sections on tracks like “The Tunnel” and “Into the Abyss” that remind us of the good old days of Melodic Death Metal the Swedish way.

Things get more melodic and a bit Doomier with “Glass Eyed Child”, a track that nicely starts with classical string instruments and acoustic guitars and then it develops into a full-on Melodic DM anthem with a slower pace than usual. The slowdown after 3:00 is just masterful and very catchy thanks to the combination of growls and shrieks working together with a faint guitar solo in the background.

With more powerful riffing and aggression, “Grinding Dreams” and “Strength from my Wounds” keep things rolling. As one of our personal favorites, “Strength from my Wounds” features more super catchy sections and more excellent clean guitar work. The drumming throughout the release is excellent and on tracks like this one, you can clearly appreciate it even more. The only song we quite didn’t like in this release is the very Marilyn Mason-esque “My Crown”, where the vocals are just too much and make this song sound very weird, but the overall pace and structure of the track is quite enjoyable.

Yes, there are plenty of similarities to Dark Tranquility here, however, Lahmia pulls it off graciously and expands on their sound adding layers of their own. The musicianship in this release is excellent and every song has something that will make you re-listen to them over and over. If you are looking for something to headbang non-stop, “Into the Abyss” is the album you should be buying.

Release: May 14th, 2012

Country: Italy