BARON - BENEATH THE BLAZING ABYSS

Finnish crusty death/doom trio Baron immediately approach from a couple different angles on Beneath The Blazing Abyss' opener “Primordial Possession”: the chainsaw guitars nod to classic Swedeath, the spirit feels slightly more Relapse-smart, the sonics are a mix of sludgey Morbid Angel and faster Incantation.

So, yeah, of course I'm on board, and I'm on board with “Infernal Atonement”'s sideways bass plunking and double-bass-led spelunking; “At The Dawn Of Damnation” is massive in length (9:17) and sound, the band crafting a huge epic, guitar and drums in lockstep, the song going by in what feels like three minutes, no small feat. Given the oppressive nature of a lot of the sonics here and the hefty song lengths for some of these tunes, the album does get a bit tiring as we near the finish line, but I feel like that's part of the beauty of Baron.

And talk about oppressive: 9:09 monolith “Bound To The Funeral Pyres” is the heaviest song you'll hear all year. Lose the blackened “Hands Of Sin...” and snoozer outro “...Swallowed By Fires Beneath” and there's eight minutes gone, putting the album closer to where it needs to be to achieve maximum debut album destruction.