Throwback Thursday: Abominant -- The Way After (1999)

Kentucky, USA extreme metal band Abominant began in 1993 with a couple of demos, and then two studio albums, and then in 1999 they had The Way After, their third album. Their death metal at this time remained largely fast and brutal, but an interesting detail about this particular album is a tendency to expand their sound, something that they continue until the present day. Nowadays their death metal incorporates things like traditional heavy metal, done in their own chaotic, death/thrash extreme metal way. Anyway, on The Way After the listener will hear what appears to be brutal U.S. death metal, but then the guitar work consistently shows a black metal-leaning sound, but not in the production. The production is death metal but an important part of the guitar work is a black metal tendency that adds another side to the Abominant sound of the time. Therefore, this was not a typical U.S. death metal album, and that made it stand out a bit more. -Metal Bulletin Zine

ABOUT: ABOMINANT was formed in 1993 in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, following the demise of several local death metal acts. Guitarist Tim Ball and bassist Mike May from Sarcoma joined forces with guitarist Buck Wiedeman and drummer Craig Netto from Effigy to start a new project with darker, heavier roots than their previous outfits. In early 1994 they released their Never Truly Dead demo, and soon after, Wiedeman left to join the Air Force. Acquiring Mike Barnes from Louisville’s Cataclysm on vocals, they released another demo in late 1994 which led to a union with Wild Rags Records. Wild Rags released ABOMINANT’s debut, Unspeakable Horrors, in 1996. Wild Rags also opted to issue the Never Truly Dead demo on MCD format. The band released two more full-lengths through Wild Rags — 1997’s In Darkness Embrace and 1999’s The Way After — before the label’s demise.

While in between records and labels, Wiedeman returned to the fold, increasing the band to a five-piece and doubling the material needed for a new record. ABOMINANT soon connected with Deathgasm Records for the release of 2000’s Ungodly which garnered the most success and positive reviews for the band yet. After 2002’s Upon Black Horizons, Deathgasm also officially repressed The Way After. Following the band’s 2004 full-length Conquest, ABOMINANT parted ways with its original drummer and brought in Jim Higgins who had been in multiple local bands, including Cataclysm with Mike Barnes, which helped usher in a more black metal influence and also reinvigorated the band. Not long after, they recorded 2006’s Triumph Of The Kill, however upon its release, Wiedeman decided to bow out of the band for a second time.

The quartet released 2008’s Warblast and 2010’s Where Demons Dwell with Deathgasm before opting to self-release an MCD with two covers and two new songs for 2012’s Battlescarred. By 2013, the label released the band’s most fully-realized album yet, with Onward To Annihilation. In 2016 ABOMINANT and Deathgasm Records presented the band’s eleventh full-length album, Napalm Reign, celebrating their twenty-third year as a band.

Abominant - The Way After (Full Album)

https://www.facebook.com/Abominant-152430868173200/?fref=ts