Ordh "Blind in Abyssal Realms" Review (INDESCRIBABLE HORRORS AND MURKY DEATH METAL RIFFS AWAIT ...)

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:15]What's up everybody? Thralls money here once again. I'm the Crooked Neck.

[00:00:17]>> I'm Jammin John.

[00:00:18]>> And we have yet another album review for you and one that I almost forgot about and luckily I didn't.

[00:00:25]Good job.

[00:00:26]>> I know. There's a whole story there and I just told it.

[00:00:29]>> Man hears about album, man forgets album, man remembers album, the day is saved. Anyway, we're going over the debut album from Ord, Blind in Abyssal Realms. This also comes out on the 17th of April on Pulverised Records. This band formed at some point in Vermont. I did not find an exact date. This band essentially formed from the ashes of Barashi, which was a really cool like progressive sludge metal act. That band broke up in 2023, but this band, at least according to their Bandcamp, have been working on this album for 5 years.

[00:01:02]So, they didn't just immediately jump into this band right after Barashi broke up. They've been working on this for a while and honestly it kind of sounds like it. This again is their debut album. There's no EP or demo that precedes this. This is it. They came right out of the gate with a full length. I heard one track on, I believe an article on Metal Sucks, blah blah blah, you know, the usual metal rags. I was like, "Oh, wow, this is pretty cool." Also saw they're going to be on MDF this year, another bonus. And to describe this band, this is progressive death metal. You can argue death doom, but progressive is definitely a big part of it. Uh and man, this is just an actually monolithic album. You know, it's interesting. I saw this band mentioned in just posts across Facebook, you know, Thralls of Metal, man, there's metal [ __ ] everywhere on my Facebook feed. And I saw this band come up and I wasn't quite sure what it was and then Nick made mention of it today and then as I was scrolling through Facebook later in the day I saw they were going to be on MDF and I was like, "Okay. All right, we're going to have to go over this."

[00:02:05]And uh yeah, this record is gigantic. I mean, this band sound I mean, first off, I will say this sounds like 5 years of work. Like this is meticulously crafted.

[00:02:17]It is so layered with guitars and melody. There's a lot of thought put into like transitions and the whole mood and vibe and atmosphere of this.

[00:02:27]Baseline, this kind of is in that same kind of vein as like Blood Incantation, Gut Void, uh later Gorguts. I you know, I would say it's kind of comparable Tomb Mold, uh even a band like Ghastly out of Finland. There's a lot of atmosphere, a lot of like lurching, menacing riffs, cavernous vocals. The production here is amazing. Perfect. Perfect for what the this band sounds like. I think they nailed it. Big fat drums, piercing yet warm, kind of fuzzy guitars. I don't know. I wasn't expecting that out of a death metal band for that tone to be that rich and that full.

[00:03:07]>> It's swampy. Like it sounds damp. Like that's kind of like the best way to describe it cuz the whole album, it sounds like it's just surrounded by this fog or mist or like dense miasma. It's It's I don't know. It's just got a texture to it. But the guitars again, they're warm and it's not like the biggest crunch when it comes down to like the more brutal moments.

[00:03:29]Uh you know, Hyperthesia is probably the heaviest track in here and it's got big, punishing, Morbid Angel style riffs.

[00:03:36]Still a lot of cool melodies to it, but it is definitely one of the most aggressive tracks. But even then the guitar tone it just feels just swampy and thick.

[00:03:45]>> This band, right from the rip, does a great job about setting the atmosphere.

[00:03:50]It's spacey, it's creepy, it's dark, and it it's layered so well. Like it's weird. It's It's very dense, but it's very open at the same time.

[00:04:01]>> Oddly, like the the vibe and the tone of this is pure cosmic horror. Like it's Lovecraftian without being like outwardly Lovecraftian. Like there's no Cthulhu on the cover or anything like that. There's no references to like Providence as far as I know. But the vibe with the cavernous vocals and you know, almost like rhythmic chanting occasionally on here and just how again, like damp and how the riffs move and undulate. It just has a Lovecraftian vibe without even just saying it's Lovecraftian. And that comes down to the riff work too cuz the riff work in here is awesome. Oh my god. And it fits so well with the atmosphere because everything on here it feels like it slithers or it's kind of like interwoven or anything like that. Like there's a lot of like stuff crossing over uh one another. It's just a very tentacley vibe because they layer the guitars a lot on here and it feels like the melodies are just kind of like interwoven. A lot of counter harmonies, a lot of straight up harmonies, lots and lots of dissonance. But they know how to come back to like just big, heavy riffs.

[00:05:13]And one thing that was all over here are a lot of like later death slash like Atheist Cynic kind of like almost jazz fusion harmonies. The opening track, Epis Bull, Epis Bull, I don't know what that is.

[00:05:28]Um it's a very technical, just wild song, but the end part of it, there is this very it's Paul Masvidal style like riff and melody on top of that, but of course like with these like Chuck Schuldiner sorts of like hooks to it. It screams 90s death metal, but the thing with this album is it doesn't feel like a complete throwback. Like this isn't just like recycled Morbid Angel riffs and [ __ ] like that.

[00:05:53]>> [clears throat] >> There's a lot of stuff going on. Not only is there a lot of stuff going on, it's pretty constant and it really never stops. I mean, there are a couple moments. There's one in Flagrant Fields where you know, after we've gone through, let's say 97,000 harmonies because that's what exists, there is a part where it slows down and it's just smooth and the melody is smooth, the lead on it is sexy, and it calms down kind of like Blood Incantation does, at least with their most recent release. But really, these harmonies in these songs just don't quit. They It's constant. Just constantly moving, constantly building.

[00:06:31]Again, constantly throwing out layers.

[00:06:33]Like it's it's huge. Just a massive sound of constant swirling harmonies.

[00:06:39]And it's really cool how they employ them because like it'll start off with like a straightforward riff and then layer upon layer comes on. But they'll do kind of like the reverse thing too and kind of like peel off layers, get that riff going again, and then sink into like a different transition. When this band slows down though, like it's the weird meeting point between like what Blood Incantation does and what those same dudes pretty much do in Spectral Voice. There's definitely some heavy death doom moments on here. But you get like those single chiming riffs in the middle of just like an absolute void. They just kind of echo around.

[00:07:15]Very similar to Disembowelment and Vermolak. Honestly, there's some big Neurosis vibes on the title track and it's a kind of like slow Neurosis build.

[00:07:25]Like something you would hear on like Enemy of the Sun. Of course like Through Silver and Blood. It's haunting. It's oppressive. It's dark. But it doesn't necessarily scream flat out death metal up until it kind of builds into the more death metal riffs. And to be honest, I wouldn't even state that this record is full of death metal riffs. The last track definitely I would say is more death metal on here. But really, it's about big, open, creepy atmosphere and again, building harmonies and um there's a lot of mood changes. I would state probably that there's more like slower doom-esque moments in this album than there are death metal. I mean, yeah, I mean, if you're just looking for like the flat out like fast-paced death metal, I mean, you know, Epis Bull and Moon of Ord, like there's like a lot of like off time drums in there. Like kind of almost tribal. It's very meditative too because the songs are long, kind of drawn out. But when you get down to, you know, Flagrant Fields or however you say that, I don't give a flagrant [ __ ] Um and the title track, you get really slow. Like the song start crawling like they're pulling themselves out of like primordial ooze. But like I said, tonal shifts are all over here. And the title track has one of the biggest ones on here because that one completely caught us off guard. Like before this transition, everything again was slow, doomy, very present synth. The synth on that song in particular were probably one of the biggest things that reminded me of Neurosis. Like again, very early Neurosis, more slow, more raw and gritty or actually a lot like the new one. But all of a sudden all that drops out to isolated machine gun guitars. You get some cymbal grabs and then we're we're [ __ ] blasting. It's [ __ ] aggressive. It's fast. The whole nature of that song just shifts. It's almost a completely different song at that point.

[00:09:16]>> from like Neurosis and like esoteric and a straight mournful, woeful kind of atmosphere to full on blast beats. Like it's just off to the races. And that song doesn't stop. It's almost one of those jump scare moments. You totally weren't expecting that, but it it was nice to see. And even when it slows back down to like a kind of a groovier pocket, it stays more in that death metal vein. Like the riffs don't sound as atmospheric or lush. They sound [ __ ] punishing and heavy and again, a lot like Morbid Angel. Same thing with Hyperthesia to a degree too. Well, that song comes out absolutely swinging.

[00:09:50]Again, one of the heaviest songs on there. As the song goes on, you start hearing those layered, woven, twisting melodies and counter harmonies come back, but they're done in like just a more aggressive fashion. It almost kind of like bookends the album, where the first track just comes in, kind of sets the stage, the atmosphere. It feels again grimy and twisted. This kind of sets it right back up to kind of leave that same way. And it's like the last communication to whatever elder god they're worshipping at the time. There's a lot of them.

[00:10:23]Uh and they're all probably really sick of us [ __ ] useless humans right now.

[00:10:27]But a lot of this album is about like, you know, really interesting pacing, too, cuz it has, again, like these very slow, almost glacial, like kind of moments, like where it feels like you're actually watching a glacier move in real time and looking over at your buddy like, "We've been on this boat for a while."

[00:10:45]Hasn't moved. No, but there are some really elongated sections of this album where it does feel like it's plotting, like it's it's, you know, kind of like laboring the atmosphere, which is a slight detractor. Like there are just points where it does feel a little bit long in the tooth, but overall, like if you're really picking this apart, the riff work is it's it's going to be hypnotic if you're nuts about it as we are. It is a little bit long, especially the the title track. I think the title track clocks in somewhere close to 15 minutes and like I mean, that that's great. I wouldn't necessarily say I was bored because they they keep [ __ ] moving. Like even when it's slow down, even when it's into a doomy section, it's not funeral doom and there's still something going on with the atmosphere and there's still some sort of building harmony. So it's not like there's nothing to pay attention to. The riffs aren't stock, either. There's a lot of complexity to everything. Like, you know, this is I don't know. It's like listening to a combination of like a band like Morbus Chron and maybe Cryptic Shift in a way.

[00:11:52]Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. So it's weird and it's drony and it's ugly and it's again, oddly wet. Like again, it feels just it's damp and musty. It dragged its tentacles across your bathroom floor and did not clean up.

[00:12:08]But really outside of that, I'm hard-pressed to find complaints. The scathing dissonance on this album, again, there there's always something crawling at you. There's always something coming for you. And and things just keep building and you're like, "Oh my god, I don't know how many more things they can build on here." At times it seemed like a a free-form stream of consciousness, although very calculated.

[00:12:32]So I I don't really have any issues. I mean, kind of the same thing. Like I was really kind of like be hypnotized by this. Like it has a lot of, you know, like qualities where you kind of just get drawn into like the riff work, the atmosphere. The drum work in here I think is really solid, too. Like it's not too sharp or too jagged in terms of like being overly technical. It's very smooth, but there's a lot of transitions going on.

[00:12:59]Uh it's a busy album that maintains a lot of momentum. And I don't know, if you're just a death metal head, I think it's easy to get hooked into.

[00:13:08]>> Yeah, yeah. So overall, I'm going to give this thing four stars right now. It might be a four and a half later, though. Like legit, I was pretty impressed by this. Yeah, it is like a tad long in the tooth at spots, but I don't think any of it's bad. The songs are well constructed. The riff work is [ __ ] >> killer. magical. And it's a dark, very evil magic, so don't go thinking it's like pleasant or anything like that.

[00:13:30]This is This isn't unicorn [ __ ] This is unicorns barfing blood and [ __ ] you know, shooting eye lasers. Actually, no, it's not even that, either. This is like straight-up Lovecraftian [ __ ] Um no, but the riff work in here is just insane. Again, everything feels woven together when it comes down to that. The drum work solid, the atmosphere permeates the entire album. There's just a vibe and just a a weird kind of like cosmic evil to this that I absolutely dig. Again, if you're a big fan of Blood Incantation, Gut Void, uh Tomb Mold, especially the last Tomb Mold, uh bands like Ghastly, and I mean, I would say a fair amount of like, you know, Finnish death metal, too, check this out. This thing's [ __ ] awesome.

[00:14:16]I've got to completely agree. I'm also going to give it a four and it might go to a four and a half as well. Just I I'm telling you, there's there's so much to uncover in this record. Wild [ __ ] riffs, crazy swirling harmonies, scathing dissonance, and just a massive sound. Like the this the sound of this album is so huge and it's so dark, yet it's so pretty at times, too.

[00:14:39]I loved everything about it, really. I don't have a complaint with any of the songs other than being a smidge long at times, but like I said before, the band keeps you on your toes, you know, they keep [ __ ] moving. They keep little surprises around every corner. Again, the riffs are non-stop, dude. Just non-stop [ __ ] awesome harmonies. The layering is great. Uh yeah, if you're a fan really of any of the bands we've mentioned, there's not a whole lot more I could throw in there. Neurosis, Death, Spectral Voice, things like that. Uh man, check this out. This is definitely worth your time, definitely worth a spin, and I for one, probably both of us, are stoked as [ __ ] to see this live at MDF. So yeah, good job, guys. So if you enjoyed this review, give it a thumbs up. And if you are new to the channel, subscribe because we do stuff like this all the time. We also have memberships. They're only 99 cents and a lone perk is a members-only livestream, which we will do probably towards the end of the month and we will definitely let you know when we're going to do that. Either way, memberships are the main way to support the channel. And if you'd like to join up, there's a join button down here, which you should stick with your finger, tentacle, beak, uh proboscis, rostrum. Yeah, whatever you got. I'm not here to judge. I'm just here to wonder why you have all those things. I'm not even really sure what a proboscis is.

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